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CDERIGHT DEPOSnV 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

GEORGE PEARSON 




CORPORAL (now SERGEANT) EDWARD EDWARDS, PRINCESS 

Patricia's Canadian light infantry. 



THE ESCAPE OF A 
PRINCESS PAT 



Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months* 

imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess 

Patricia s Canadian Light Infantry, and his 

final escape from Germany into Holland 

BY 

GEORGE PEARSON 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



^?>* 



COPYRIGHT, 1918, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



APR !3!3!8 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICjJ 






TO THE MEMORY OF 

OUR COMRADES WHO FELL 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

In order to remove all question of doubt in the 
mind of the reader it might perhaps be well to state 
here that the facts as given are the bona fide experi- 
ences of Corporal Edwards, Number 39, Number 
One Company, P. P. C. L. L, and as such were sub- 
jected to the closest scrutiny both by the author and 
others before it was deemed advisable to give the 
account to the public. In particular great pains were 
taken to do full justice to all enemy individuals who 
figure in the story. 

Recognizing the seriousness of the charges implied 
by the recital, all those concerned with it are ex- 
tremely anxious that the correctness of the account 
should constitute its chief value : In short the inten- 
tion has been to make of the story a readable history. 

The main facts — having to do with the destruc- 
tion of the regiment on the eighth of May, 1915? 
the identity and activities of the individuals men- 
tioned and the more important of the later happen- 
ings, including the final escape into Holland — are 

vii 



PREFACE 



matters of official record and as such have frequently 
been mentioned in the official dispatches. The more 
personal details are based on the recollections of 
Corporal Edwards' retentive mind, aided by his very 
unusual powers of observation and the rough diary 
which he managed to retain possession of during his 
later adventures. 

For the events preceding the capture of Corporal 
Edwards on the eighth of May the author has relied 
upon his own recollections; as he too had the honor 
of having been "an original Patricia." 

G. P. 
Sept. 1, 1917. 
Toronto, Canada. 



viu 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Polygon Wood 14 

II The Fourth of May ..... 20 

III Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale 23 

IV Major Gault Comes Back ... 28 

V The Eighth of May and the Last 

Stand of the Princess Pats . . 33 

VI Prisoners 45 

VII Pulling the Leg of a German General 61 

VIII The Princess Patricia's German 

Uncle 70 

IX How the German Red Cross Tended 

the Canadian Wounded ... 76 

X The Curious Concoctions of the Chef 

at Giessen 81 

The Way They Have at Giessen . 86 

XII The Escape 104 

XIII The Traitor at Vehnmoor . . . 115 

XIV Away Again 123 

ix 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XV Paying the Piper 140 

XVI The Third Escape 158 

XVII What Happened in the Wood . . 177 

XVIII The Last Lap 185 

XIX Holland at Last 194 

XX "It's a Way They Have in the Army" 203 

The Evidence in the Case 210 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Corporal (Now Sergeant) Edward Edwards, 
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light In- 
fantry Frontispiece 

PAGE 

British wounded waiting for transportation to 

a dressing station 26 

The Princess Patricias in billets at Westoutre, 

Belgium 26 

German prisoners bringing wounded men 

down a communication trench ... 42 

Wounded Canadians receiving first aid after 

an attack 64 

Recipes from Corporal Edward's Diary . . 84 

Fellow prisoners at Geissen 98 

Fellow prisoners at Geissen 98 

Record of second escape and recapture . . 126 

German prisoners at Southampton . . . . 136 

High explosives bursting over German 

trenches 146 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Salient details of the third escape . . 
Private Mervin C. Simmons, C. E. F. 
The cemetery at Celle Laager Z i Camp 
Corporal Edwards after his escape . . 
Homeward bound 



PAGE 

170 
192 

206 
206 
220 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 



THE ESCAPE OF A 
PRINCESS PAT 

CHAPTER I 

Polygon Wood 

Ypres and Hill 6o — Preparing for the Gas — Why the 
Patricias Cheered — The Retirement — The Thin Red Line. 

The Princess Patricias had lain in Polygon Wood 
since the twentieth of April, mid-way between the 
sanguinary struggles of St. Julien and Hill 60, spec- 
tators of both. Although subjected to constant 
alarm we had had a comparatively quiet time of it, 
with casualties that had only varied from five 
to fifty-odd each day. 

By day and night the gun-fire of both battles had 
beat back upon us in great waves of sound. There 
were times when we had donned our water soaked 
handkerchiefs for the gas that always threatened 
but never came, so that the expectation might have 
shaken less steady troops. Quick on the heels of thf 

15 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

first news of the gas the women of Britain, their 
tears scalding their needles, with one accord had 
laboured, sans rest, sans sleep, sans everything, so 
that shortly there had poured in to us here a steady 
stream of gauze pads for mouth and nostril. For the 
protection of our lungs against the poison of the gas 
they were at least better than the filthy rags we 
called handkerchiefs. We wore their gifts and in 
spirit bowed to the donors, as I think all still do. We 
soaked them with the foul water of the near-by 
graves and kept them always at our side, ready to 
tie on at each fresh alarm. 

Once there had come word in a special army order 
of the day: "Our Belgian agent reports that all 
enemy troops on this front have been directed to 
enter their trenches to-night with fixed bayonets. All 
units are enjoined to exercise the closest watch on 
their front; the troops will stand to from the first 
appearance of darkness, with each man at hij cost 
prepared for all eventualities. Sleep will not be 
permitted under any circumstances." 

The consequence had been that that night had 
been one of nervous expectation of an attack which 
did not materialise. We always carried fixed bay- 

i6 



POLYGON WOOD 



onets in the trenches but the Germans were better 
equipped with loopholes, as they were with most 
other things, and were forced to leave their bayonets 
off their rifles in order to avoid any danger of the 
latter sticking in their metal shields when needed 
in a hurry, to say nothing of the added attention 
they would draw in their exposed and stationary 
position at the mouth of a loophole. The "Stand- 
to" had come as a distinct relief that morning. 

And always there had been the glowering fires of 
a score of villages. The greater mass of burning 
Ypres stood up amongst them like the warning fin- 
ger of God. Occasionally the roaring burst of an 
ammunition dump flared up into a volcano of fiery 
sound. The earth under our feet trembled in con- 
vulsive shudders from a cannonade so vast that no 
one sound could be picked out of it and the walls 
of dug-outs slid in, burying sleeping men. But like 
the promise of God there came to us in every inter- 
val of quietness, as always, the full-throated song 
of many birds. 

Our forces consisted of the French who held the 
left comer of the Ypres salient, then the Canadian 
division in the centre, next the 28th Division of 

17 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

the regular British Army and then our own, the 
27th, with Hill 60 on our right flank. The enemy 
attacked both at Hill 60 and at the line of the 
Canadian Division and the French, and we held on 
to the horse-shoe shaped line until the last possible 
moment when one more shake of the tree would 
have thrown us like ripe fruit into the German lap. 

So near had the converging German forces ap- 
proached to one another that the weakened battery 
behind our own trenches had been at the last, turned 
around the other way and fired in the opposite di- 
rection without a shift in its own position. For 
our own protection we had nothing. And later still 
these and all other guns left us to seek new positions 
in the rear so that only we of the infantry remained. 

Daily there had come orders to "Stand-to" in full 
marching order, to evacuate; at which all ranks ex- 
postulated angrily. And then perhaps another order 
— to stick it another day; at which we cheered and 
slapped one another boisterously on the back so that 
the stolid Germans over yonder must have wondered, 
knowing what they did of our desperate situation. 

But the dreaded order came at last and was con- 
firmed, so that under protest and like the beaten 

18 



POLYGON WOOD 



men that we knew we were not, we slunk away un- 
der cover of darkness on the night of the third of 
May to trenches three miles in the rear, and with us 
went the troops on ten more miles of British front. 

The movement as executed was in reality a feat 
of no mean importance on the part of the higher 
command. Faced by an overwhelmingly superior 
force, our badly depleted three divisions had barely 
escaped being bagged in the net of which the enemy 
had all but drawn the noose in a strategetic sur- 
rounding movement. 

In detail, the movement had consisted of with- 
drawing under cover of darkness with all that we 
could carry of our trench material, both to prevent 
it falling into hostile hands and equally to strengthen 
our new position. A small rearguard of fifteen men 
to the regiment had held our front for the few hours 
necessary for us to "shake down" in the new position. 
Their task was to remain behind and to give a con- 
tinuous rapid-fire from as many different spots as 
possible in a given time, thereby keeping up the illu- 
sion of a heavily manned trench. Then, they too had 
faded quietly away, following us. 

Our new trenches were three miles behind those 
iQ 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

we had just evacuated in Polygon Wood. Zillebeke 
lay just to the left and beyond that, Hooge. We 
were in the open, with Belle-waarde Wood and Lake 
behind us. 

We continued to face vastly superior forces. To 
make matters worse the trenches were assuredly a 
mockery of their kind and there was even less of ade- 
quate support than before. And at that the drafts 
arrived each day — if they were lucky enough to 
break through the curtains of fire with which the 
enemy covered our rear for that very purpose, as 
well as for the further one of curtailing the arrival 
of all necessary supplies of food and ammunition. 

Every camp and hospital from Ypres to Rouen 
and the sea and from Land's End to John O' Groat 
was combed and scraped for every eligible casualty, 
every overconfident office holder of a "cushy" job, 
and in short, for all those who could by hook or 
crook hold a rifle to help stem this threatening tide. 
And in our own lot, even those wasteful luxuries, the 
petted officers' servants were amongst us, doing fight- 
ing duty for the first time, so that we almost wel- 
comed the desperate occasion which furnished so rare 
and sweet a sight. 

20 



CHAPTER II 

The Fourth of May 

The Unofficial Armistice — The Clash of the Scouts — "Stick- 
ing It" on the Fourth. 

We suffered cruelly on the Fourth. The dawn 
had discovered two long lines of men, madly digging 
in plain sight of one another. There was no firing 
except that one little storm when the stronger light 
had shown our rear guard ridiculously tangled up 
with a screen of German scouts so that some of each 
were nearer to foe than to friend and so had foes 
on either side. They shot at one another. Some of 
us in our excitement shot at both, scarce able to dis- 
tinguish one from the other. Others amongst us 
strove to knock their rifles up. And the Germans in 
their trenches shot too. Both of us of the main 
bodies continued to respect the tacit truce imposed 
by the conditions under which we found ourselves, 
insofar as we ourselves were concerned, and fired 
only at the poor fellows in between. 

As for them, I fear the absurd nature of their 

2J 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

tragic plight excited more of wonder than of con- 
cern. They merged into hedges and ditches swal- 
lowed them. Their case was only one incident of 
many, and what became of them I have never heard, 
except that Lieutenant Lane who commanded our 
rear guard was with us on the Eighth, so I presume 
that some must have crawled up to us that night and 
so saved themselves for the moment. Anything els^ 
would have been a great pity for so brave a squad. 

The digging continued until the better equipped 
Germans had finished their task; when they sought 
their holes with one accord, an example which we 
as quickly followed. 

This was at nine o'clock on the morning of the 
fourth of May. From then on until dusk the in- 
tensity of a furious all-day bombardment by every 
known variety of projectile had been broken only 
at intervals to allow of the nearer approach of the 
enemy's attacking infantry. The worst was the en- 
filade fire of two batteries on our right which with 
six-inch high explosive shells tore our front line to 
fragments so that we were glad indeed to see the 
night come. Only once had ours replied, one gun 
only. That was early in the morning. It barked 

2Z 



THE FOURTH OF MAY 



feebly, twice, but drew so fierce a German fire that it 
was forever silenced. 

Some infantry attacks followed but were beaten 
off. Only a weak half of the battalion was in the 
front line trench. The remainder were in Belle- 
waarde Wood, the outer fringe of which was a bare 
one hundred yards behind the front line. They were 
fairly comfortable in pine bough huts which were, 
however, with some of their occupants, badly 
smashed by shell fire that day. 

The outcome was that although all attacks were 
beaten off, our losses were well on to two hundred 
men, most of whom were accounted for in the more 
exposed front line. 

The order had been that we were to hold this 
front for several days more although the regiment 
had been in the trenches since April the 2oth, and, 
except for a march back to Ypres from Polygon 
Wood, since early April. But after such a smashing 
blow on men who were already thoroughly ex- 
hausted, the plan was changed and our line was 
taken over by the King's Shropshire Light Infan- 
try, the "Shrops" we called them, a sister regiment 
in our brigade, the Both. 

23 



CHAPTER III 

Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale 

Amongst the Wounded — Trench Nerves — Resting in 

Coffins. 

It was on this day that I rejoined the regiment. I 
had been wounded in the foot at St. Eloi in February 
and had come up in a draft fresh from hospital and 
had lain in the supports at the huts all of the Fourth. 

The survivors of the front line fire joined those 
at the huts shortly after nightfall. They were 
stupid from shell iire, too dazed to talk. I saw one 
man wandering in half circles, talking to himself — 
and with a heavy pack on. There were others in 
worse plight; so there was no help for him. 

Myself, I was too much engrossed in a search for 
my comrade Woods to bother with other men less 
dear, however much I might sympathise with them. 

He and I had been "mates" since Toronto days, 
had made good cheer together in the hot August 
days of mobilisation at Ottawa and had rubbed mess 

24 



CORPL. EDWARDS TAKES UP THE TALE 

tins together under the starry sky at Levis before 
the great Armada had taken us to English camps 
and other scenes. 

It was he who had fetched me out of danger at 
St. Eloi. And now it was my turn. They told me 
he was somewhere on a stretcher. 

I searched them all. I struck matches — and was 
met by querulous curses; I knelt by the side of the 
dying; I inquired of those wounded who still could 
walk, but find him I could not. It appears that a 
new and heavy moustache had helped to hide him 
from me. I was in great distress, but in the fullness 
of time and when our small circles had run their 
route, I discovered him in Toronto. 

The word was that we were to go to Vlamertinghe, 
where the Zeppelins had bombed us in our huts. It 
lay well below threatened Ypres. 

We of Number One Company passed Belle- 
waarde Lake, with its old dug-outs and its smells, 
and struck off across the fields, the better to avoid 
the heavy barrage fire which made all movement 
of troops difficult beyond words. We reached the 
railroad up and down which in quieter times the 

25 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

battalion had been wont to march to and fro to the 
Polygon Wood trenches. 

The fire became heavier here and the going was 
rough so that what with the burden of packs which 
seemed to weigh a ton and all other things ; we moved 
in a mass, as sheep do. When slung rifles jostled 
packs, good friends cursed one another both loud and 
long. This was trench nerves. 

Shortly, we ran into a solid wall of barrage fire. 
The officer commanding the company halted us. 
We were for pushing on to that rest each aching 
bone and muscle, each tight-stretched and shell- 
dazed nerve fairly screamed aloud for. But he was 
adamant. We cursed him. He pretended not to 
hear. This also was trench nerves. 

It was growing late. The star shells became 
fewer. The search-lights ceased altogether. In half 
an hour those keen eyes in distant trees and steeples 
would have marked us down — and what good then 
the agony of this all-night march*? Better to have 
been killed back there in Belle-waarde. We were 
still a good two miles from Ypres town. 

The officer literally drove us back over the way 
we had come. His orders had anticipated this even- 

26 




BRITISH WOUNDED WAITING FOR TRANSPORTATION TO A DRESSING 
STATION. 




THE PRINCESS PATRICIAS IN BILLETS AT WESTOUTRE, BELGIUM. 
ON TOP OF WAGON IN FOREGROUND IS "kNIFE-REST" 
TYPE OF WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS. 



CORPL. EDWARDS TAKES UP THE TALE 

tuality so that rather than force the passage of the 
barrage fire, merely for a rest, we should rest here 
where no rest was to be had. Undoubtedly, if we 
had been "going up" it would have been different. 
We should have gone on — no fire would have 
stopped us. 

The half hour limit brought us to a murky day- 
light and an old and sloppy support trench which 
bordered the track and into which we flung our- 
selves, to lay in the water in a dull stupor that was 
neither sleep nor honest waking. 

Later, when the rations had been "dished out" we 
bestirred ourselves and so found or dug queer cof- 
fin-shaped shelves in either wall. Out of courtesy 
we called them dug-outs. 

I do not remember that any one spoke much of 
the dead. 

The rain stopped and for a time the unaccus- 
tomed sun came out. We drove stakes in the walls 
above our coffins, hunted sand-bags and hung them 
and spare equipment over the open face and then 
crawled back into the water which, as usual, was al- 
ready forming in the hollows that our hips made 
where we lay. Until noon there was little heard 

27 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

but the thick breathing of weary men. Occasionally 
one tossed and shouted blasphemous warnings anent 
imaginary and bursting shells; whereat those within 
hearing whined in a tired and hopeless anger, and, 
if close by, kicked him. Trench nerves. 

All day the fire of many guns sprayed us. Near 
by, the well defined emplacement of one of our own 
batteries inevitably drew to the entire vicinity a 
heavy fire so that one shell broke fair amongst our 
sleeping men. 



28 



CHAPTER IV 

Major Gault Comes Back 

"The King Is Dead" : "Long Live the King"— Back to Belle- 
waarde — The Seventh of May. 

That was on the fifth. In the afternoon young 
Park came to us. He was the Commanding Officer's 
orderly. There was down on his face but he was 
full of all that strange wisdom of a trenchman who 
had experienced the bitter hardships and the heart- 
breaking losses of a winter in the cursed salient of 
St. Eloi, by Shelley Farm and The Mound of 
Death. But just now this infant of the trenches 
had the round eyes of a startled child, which in him 
meant mad excitement. 

"The C. O.'s hit." 

The word slid up the trench: "The C.O.'s hit." 

"Strike me I Cawn't this bleedin' regiment keep a 
bleedin' Colonel ? That makes two of them I" 

"How did it happen?" 

"What the devil are we goin' to do?" 
29 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

"Who says so?" 

"The second in six weeks !" 

"Parkie." 

"By ! This mob's in a Hell of a fix, Bo'." 

Park was leaning on his rifle, trench fashion. 
"Oh, dry up. You give me a pain." 

And then he launched his thunderbolt, "Gault's 
back." 

The chorus of despair became one of wild delight. 

"We're jake I" "He'll see us through." "Where 
is he?" "How's his arm?" "The son-of-a-gun ! 
Couldn't keep him away, could they?" 

"No fear. Not 'im. Bloody well wanted to be 
wiv 'is bleedin' boys, 'e did. 'E ain't bloody well 
goin' to do 'is bloody solderin' in a 'cushy' job in 
Blighty — like some of 'em. Not after rysin' us. 
Do it wiv 'is bloody self like a man ; an' that's wot 
'e is." 

The speaker glared accusingly ; but his declaration 
agreed too well with what all thought for any one to 
take exception to it. 

The new Commanding Officer had been wounded 
at St. Eloi on March ist and this was our first inti- 
mation of his return. 

30 



MAJOR GAULT COMES BACK 



Park took up his tale. "He's over there with the 
CO. now," and switching: "Shell splinter got him 
in the eye. Guess it's gone and maybe the other 
one too." 

"By !" he burst out passionately : "I hope it 

don't. He's been damn good to me — and to you fel- 
lows too," he added fiercely, while his lower lip quiv- 
ered. 

I think all stared anywhere but at Park, in a cu- 
rious embarrassment. 

"Got it goin' from one trench to another to see 
about the rations comin' up instead of stayin' in 
like a 'dug-out wallah.' Got out on top of the 
ground, walked across an' stopped one," he added 
bitterly. 

A considerable draft of "old boys," ruddy of face 
and fresh from hospital, together with some more 
new men reached us that night. We "went up" 
again with the dusk of the following night and "took 
over" our previous trenches in front of Belle- waarde 
Wood. 

We were told that the Shropshires had been rather 
badly cut up in the interval of their occupation by 
a further course of intense bombardment and some 

31 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

fierce infantry fighting. Nevertheless, the trenches 
had been put into much better shape since our earlier 
occupancy of them, so that what with our work 
that night they were by the morning of the seventh 
in fairly good shape. 

The night was not unusual in any way. There 
was the regular amount of shelling, of star shells, 
of machine gun and rifle fire, and of course, casu- 
alties. Those we always had, be it ever so quiet. 

Even the morning "Stand-to" with that myste- 
rious dread of unknown dangers that it invariably 
brought gave us nothing worse than an hour of chilly 
waiting — and later, the smoke of the Germans' cook- 
ing fires. 

There were none for us. It was as simple as 
algebra. Smoke attracted undue artillery attention 
— the Germans had artillery; we had not. They 
had fires ; we had not. 

The day rolled by smoothly enough. Except for 
the fresh graves and a certain number of unburied 
dead the small-pox appearance of the shell-pitted 
ground about might have been thought to have been 
of ancient origin; so filled with water were the 
shell holes and so large had they grown as a result 

32 



MAJOR GAULT COMES BACK 



of the constant sloughing in of their sodden banks. 

During all these days the German fire on the sal- 
ient at large had continued as fiercely as before but 
had spared us its severest trials. 

The night of the seventh passed to all outward 
appearance pretty much in the same manner as the 
preceding one. 



33 



CHAPTER V 

The Eighth of May and the Last Stand of 
THE Princess Pats 

Morning in the Trenches — The Artillery Preparation for 
the Infantry Attack — The P.P's Chosen to Stem the 
Tide — The Trust of a Lady — Chaos — Corporal Dover — 
The Manner in Which Some Men Kill and Others Die. 

It seemed as though I had just stepped off my 
whack of sentry go for my group when a kick in the 
ribs apprised me that it was "Stand-to." I rubbed 
my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the 
narrowness of the trench that the movement put 
me at my post at the parapet, where in common 
with my mates, I fell to scanning the top for the 
first signs of day and the Germans. 

The latter lay on the other side of the ravine from 
us as they had since the Fourth, except for such times 
as they had assaulted our position. The smoke of 
Ypres and all the close-packed villages of a thickly 
populated countryside rose sullenly on every hand. 

34 



LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS 

Over everything there hung the pallor of the mist- 
ridden Flemish morning, deadly quiet, as was usual 
at that time of the trench day when the tenseness of 
the all-night vigil was just merging into the relieving 
daylight. 

At half past six that stillness was punctuated by 
a single shell, which broke barely in our rear. And 
then the ball commenced — the most intense bom- 
bardment we had yet experienced. Most of the 
fire came from the batteries in concealed positions 
on our right, whence, as on the fourth, they poured 
in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up and 
down the length of the trench like the stream of a 
hose, making it a shambles. Each burst of high- 
explosive shells, each terrible pulsation of the at- 
mosphere, if it missed the body, seemed to rend the 
very brain, or else stupefied it. 

The general result was beyond any poor words 
of mine. All spoken language is totally inadequate 
to describe the shocks and horrors of an intense bom- 
bardment. It is not that man himself lacks the 
imaginative gift of words but that he has not the 
word tools with which to work. They do not exist. 

35 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 



Each attempt to describe becomes near effrontery and 
demands its own separate apology. 

In addition, kind Nature draws a veil for him 
over so much of all the worst of it that many details 
are spared his later recollection. He remembers 
only the indescribable confusion and the bursting 
claps of near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of 
smell as an addled egg. He knows only that the acid 
of the high-explosive gas eats into the tissue of his 
brain and lungs, destroying with other things, most 
memories of the shelling. 

Overhead an aeroplane buzzed. We could even 
descry the figures of the pilot and his observer, the 
latter signaling. No gun of ours answered. The 
dead and dying lay all about and none could at- 
tend them: A rifle was a rifle. 

This continued for an hour, at the end of which 
time we poked our heads up and saw their infantry 
coming on in columns of mobs, and some of them 
also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves 
been taught. Every field and hedge spewed them 
up. We stood, head and shoulders exposed above 
the ragged parapet, giving them "Rapid-fire." They 

36 



LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS 

had no stomach for that and retired to their holes, 
leaving many dead and grievously wounded. 

It was at this time that we saw the troops on our 
flanks falling back in orderly fashion. I called that 
fact to the attention of Lieutenant Lane, who was 
the only officer left in our vicinity. He said that 
the last word he had received was to hang on. 

This we proceeded to do, and so, we are told, did 
the others. We learned later that the battalion roll 
call that night showed a strength of one hundred 
and fifty men out of the six hundred and thirty-five 
who had answered "Present" twenty-four hours ear- 
lier. And the official records of the Canadian Eye 
Witness, Lord Beaverbrook, then Sir Max Aitken, 
as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that "Those 
who survive and the friends of those who have died 
may draw solace from the thought that never in 
the history of arms have soldiers more valiantly sus- 
tained the gift and trust of a Lady," referring to 
the Color which had been worked for and presented 
to us by the Princess Patricia, daughter of His 
Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, then Gov- 
ernor-General of Canada. 

We were on the apex of the line and were now 
37 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

unsupported on either side. It was about this time, 
I believe, that a small detachment of the King's 
Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our 
brigade, fetched to the companies in our rear twenty 
boxes of badly needed ammunition and reenforced 
the Princess Patricias. 

Following the beating off of their infantry attack 
the Germans gave us a short breathing spell until 
their machine guns had been trained on our parapet 
and a school of light field guns dragged up into 
place. The aeroplane came out again, dropping to 
within three hundred feet of our trench, and with 
tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed the 
terribly accurate fire of the enemy guns, already so 
close to, but so well insured against any harm from 
us that they attempted no concealment. And the 
big guns on the right completed the devastation. 

This continued for another half hour, at the end 
of which time there remained intact only one small 
traverse in the trench, which owed its existence to 
the fragment of chicken wire that held its sides up. 
The remainder was absolutely wiped out. This time 
there was no rapid fire, nor even any looking over 
the top to see if the enemy were coming on. In- 

38 



LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS 

stead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with 
their machine guns. Each indication of curiosity 
from us drew forth from them such a stream of fire 
that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower 
of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us 
to defend ourselves properly, even had there been 
enough of us left to do so. 

The rest was chaos, a bit of pure hell. Men 
struggling, buried alive and looking at us for the 
aid they would not ask for. Soldiers all. And the 
Germans now pouring in in waves from all sides, 
and especially from our unprotected flanks and rear, 
hindered only by the desultory rifle fire of our two 
weakened companies in the support trenches. We 
were receiving rifle fire from four directions and bay- 
onet thrusts from the Germans on the parapet. 
Mowed down like sheep. And as they came on they 
trampled our dead and bayoneted our wounded. 

The machine-gun crew had gone under to a man, 
doing their best to the last. I think Sergeant White- 
head went with them, too; at least he was near there 
a short time before, and I never saw him or any of 
the gun crew again. The only living soul near that 
spot was Royston, dragging himself out from under 

39 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

a pile of debris and covered with mud and blood, 
his face horribly swollen to twice its normal size, 
blinded foi the moment. 

To quote "Canada in Flanders" again: 
"At this time the bombardment recommenced with 
great intensity. The German bombardment had been 
so heavy since May 4th that a wood which the 
Regiment had used in part for cover was completely 
demolished. The range of our machine-guns was 
taken with extreme precision. All, without excep- 
tion, were buried. Those who served them behaved 
with the most admirable coolness and gallantry. 
Two were dug out, mounted and used again. One 
was actually disinterred three times and kept in 
action till a shell annihilated the whole section. 
Corporal Dover stuck to his gun throughout and, 
although wounded, continued to discharge his duties 
with as much coolness as if on parade. In the ex- 
plosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and 
an arm, and was completely buried in the debris. 
Conscious or unconscious, he lay there in that condi- 
tion until dusk, when he crawled out of all that was 
left of the obliterated trench and moaned for help. 
Two of his comrades sprang from the support trench 

4Q 



LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS 

— ^by this time the fire trench — and succeeded in 
carrying in his mangled and bleeding body. But as 
all that remained of this brave soldier was being 
lowered into the trench a bullet put an end to his 
sufferings. No bullet could put an end to his glory." 

George Easton was firing with me at the gray mass 
of the oncoming horde. "My rifle's jammed!" he 
cried. 

"Take mine." And I stooped to get one from a 
casualty underfoot. But a moment later, as I fired 
from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off by a 
German bullet. I shouted wildly to Cosh to toss me 
one from near by. 

Just then the main body of the Germans swarmed 
into the end of the trench. 

Of this Lord Beaverbrook says : "At this moment 
the Germans made their third and last attack. It 
was arrested by rifle fire, although some individuals 
penetrated into the fire trench on the right. At this 
point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so 
that this part of the trench was actually tenantless. 
Those who established a footing were few in num- 
ber, and they were gradually dislodged; and so the 

41 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

third and last attack was routed as successfully as 
those which had preceded it." 

His conclusion that we had all been killed was 
justifiable even though, fortunately for me, it was 
an erroneous one. So I am glad for other motives 
than those of mere courtesy to be able here to set 
him right. 

Bugler Lee shouted to me : "I'm shot through the 
leg." A couple of us seized him, planning to go 
down to where the communication trench had once 
been. But he stopped us, saying: "It's no good, 
boys. It's a dead end I They're killing us." 

Cosh swore. "Don't give up, kid I We'll beat 

the yet!" A German standing a few yards 

away raised his rifle and blew his head off. Young 
Brown broke down at this — they had just done in 
his wounded pal: "Oh, look! Look what they've 
done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And with 
that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the 
boy's head and pulled the trigger. 

Young Cox from Winnipeg put his hands above 
his head at the order. His captor placed the muzzle 
of his rifle squarely against the palm and blew it 

42 







GERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN ATTACK, 
BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH. 



LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS 

off. There remained only a bloody and broken mass 
dangling from the wrist. 

I saw a man who had come up in the draft with 
me on the 4th, rolling around in the death agony, 
tossing his head loosely about in the wild pain of it, 
his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. 
A burly German reached the spot and without hesi- 
tation plunged his saw-edged bayonet through the 
throat. 

Close by another wounded man was struggling 
feebly under a pile of earth, his legs projecting so 
that only the convulsive heaving of- the loose earth 
indicated that a man was dying underneath. An- 
other German observed that too, and shoved his 
bayonet through the mud and held it savagely there 
until all was quiet. 

This I did not see, but another did and told me of 
it afterward. Sergeant Phillpots had been shot 
through the jaw so that he went to his knees as a 
bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported him- 
self waveringly by his hands. The blood poured 
from him so that he was all but fainting with the 
loss of it. 

A big German stood over him. 
43 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Phillpots looked up : "Play the game ! Play the 
game I" he muttered weakly. 

The German coolly put a round through his head. 

I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these 
things, said to Easton : "We'd better beat it." 

He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. 
No use stopping here. Come on I" 

And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him 
dead. There was no use in my stopping to share his 
fate or worse. It was now every man for himself. 
At a later date we met in England. 

The other half of the regiment lay in support two 
hundred yards away in Belle-waarde Wood and in 
front of the chateau and lake of that name, where 
my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash 
for it. What with the mud and the many shell 
holes, the going was bad. I was indistinctly aware 
of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but 
most distinctly of one German who shot at me about 
ten times in as many yards and from quite close 
range. I saw I could not make it. I flung myself 
into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught 
my breath, scrambled out again and raced for the 
trench I had just left. I was by this time unarmed, 

44 



LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS 

having flung my rifle away to further my flight, not- 
withstanding which another German shot at me as 
I went toward him. 

As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted 
something I could not understand. And I scrambled 
to my feet in time to see a German sullenly lower 
his rifle from the level of my body at the command 
of a big black-bearded officer. 



45 



CHAPTER VI 

Prisoners 

A German Version of a Soldier's Death! — The Courage of 
Cox — Robbing the Helpless — Water on the End of a 
Bayonet — The Curious Case of Scott — Prussian Bullies 
— Why I Was Covered with a Fine Sweat. 

The Germans were by this time in full possession 
of this slice of trench, and for the next few minutes 
the officer was kept busy pulling his men off their 
victims. Like slavering dogs they were. 

He did not have his lambs any too well in hand, 
however. O. B. Taylor, a lovable character in Num- 
ber One Company, came to his end here. The Ger- 
mans ordered him and Hookie Walker to go back 
down the trench. He had no sooner turned to do so 
than a German shot him from behind and from quite 
close, so that it blew the groin completely out, mak- 
ing a terrible hole. We could not tie up so bad a 
wound and he bled to death. Hookie Walker re- 
mained with him to the last, five hours later, when 

46 



PRISONERS 



he said: "I'm going to sleep boys," and did so. 
Fortunately, he did not suffer. And all the others 
except young Cox were equally fortunate, since they 
were murdered outright. 

Taylor's was the most calculated of all the mur- 
ders we had witnessed and outdid even those of the 
wounded because the excitement of the fight was two 
hours old and he was doing the bidding of his cap- 
tors at the time. The killing of those who resisted 
was of course quite in order. Why he was killed 
while Walker was left unharmed and at his side to 
the last we did not know and could only credit to a 
whimsy of our captors. No punishment was visited 
upon his murderer or upon any of them so far as we 
were able to learn. 

Upon my later return to Canada I found that Tay- 
lor's sister there had received a letter from a Ger- 
man officer enclosing a letter addressed to her which 
had been found on her brother's body, together witli 
three war medals and a Masonic ring. The latter 
was the key to the incident since the officer also 
claimed to have been a Mason. In his letter this 
officer said that her brother had met a soldier's 
death ! 

47 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Some said that our friendly officer was not a 
German but an Irishman. I doubted that but it 
may have been so, for it was true that his speech 
contained no trace of the accent which is usually 
associated with a German's English speech. His 
was that of an English gentleman. And to him we 
undoubtedly owed our wretched lives that day. 

I in particular have good cause to be grateful. A 
German, all of six foot four, who swung a tremen- 
dously broad headsman's axe with a curved blade, 
tried several times to get at me. Each time the 
officer stopped him. Still he persisted. He ap- 
parently saw no one else and kept his eye fastened 
on me with deadly intention in it. He pushed aside 
the others, Prussians and prisoners alike ; he whirled 
the shining blade high above a face lit up with sav- 
age exultation, terrible to see, and which reflected 
the sensual revelling of his heated brain in the bloody 
orgy ahead. As I followed the incredibly rapid mo- 
tions of the blade, my blood turned to water. My 
limbs refused to act and my mind travelled back 
over the years to a little Scottish village where I 
had been used to sit in the dark corners of the shoe- 
maker's shop, listening to him and others of the 

48 



PRISONERS 



old 2nd Gordons recount their terrible tales of the 
hill men on the march to Kandahar with "Bobs." 
And now I felt that same tremendous sensation of 
fear which used to send me trembling to my childish 
pallet in the croft, peering fearfully through the 
darkness for the oiled body of a naked Pathan with 
his corkscrew kris. Terror swept over me like a 
springtime flood. He saw no one else. His eye 
fastened on me in crudest hate. But as h€ stood over 
me with feet spread wide and the circle of his axe's 
swing broadening for the finale, the thread of rabbit- 
like mesmerism broke and I sprang nimbly aside as 
the blade buried itself deep in the mud wall I had 
been cowering against. I endeavoured to dodge him 
by putting some of my fellow prisoners between us. 
No use. He followed me, shoving and cursing his 
way among them, swinging his axe. My hair stood 
on end and I felt rather critical of their much- 
vaunted Prussian discipline. Another endeavoured 
to bayonet Charlie Scarfe. The officer at last 
stopped them both. 

Our captors belonged to the Twenty-first Prus- 
sian Regiment and were, so far as we knew, the 
first of their kind we had been up against, all pre- 

49 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

vious comers on our front having been Bavarians 
and latterly of the army group of Prince Ruprecht 
of Bavaria — "Rupie," we called him. They wore 
the baggy grey clothes and clumsy looking leather 
top boots of the German infantryman. The spiked 
'pickelhauben was conspicuous by its absence and was, 
we well knew, a thing only of billets and of "swank" 
parades. In its place was the soft pancake trench 
cap with its small colored button in the front. 

The enemy were armed for the most part with 
pioneers' bayonets, as well adapted by reason of their 
saw edges for sticking flesh and blood as for sawing 
wood; and, if for the former, an unnecessarily cruel 
weapon, since it was bound to stick in the body and 
badly lacerate it internally in the withdrawal; espe- 
cially if given a twist. 

The trench front had been about-faced since its 
change of ownership and the Germans were already 
casting our dead out of the shattered trench, both 
in front and behind, and in many cases using them 
to stop the gaps in the parapet; so that they now 
received the bullets of their erstwhile comrades. 

We were ordered up and out at the back of the 
parapet and then made to lie there. The German 

50 



PRISONERS 



artillery had ceased. We had none. Odd shots from 
the remnant of our fellows still hanging on in the 
supports continued to come over, but none of us 
were hit. In all probability, they withheld their 
fire when they saw what was afoot. Some German 
snipers in a farmhouse at the rear were less consid- 
erate, but fortunately failed to hit us. 

Later we were ordered to take our equipment off 
and those who had coats, to shed them. We did not 
see the latter again and missed them horribly in the 
rain of that day. Two of the Prussians "frisked" 
us for our tobacco, cigarettes, knives and other val- 
uables. 

This was in bitter contrast to our own treatment 
of prisoners under similar conditions. True, we had 
always searched them but had invariably returned 
those little trinkets and comforts which to a soldier 
are so important. And I think our men had always 
showered them with food and tobacco. 

We were then marched to the rear, with the ex- 
ception of one, who, by permission of the ofRcer, re- 
mained with the dying Taylor. 

There were ten of us all told. I have only heard 
of a few others who were captured that day, Rob- 
Si 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

erts is still in Germany and Todeschi has been ex- 
changed and is now in Toronto. The latter lay with 
a boy of the machine-gun crew for a couple of days 
in a dug-out, both badly wounded. A German 
stumbled on to them. They pleaded for water. The 
German said, "I'll give you water" and bayoneted 
the boy as he lay. He raised his weapon so that 
the blood of his comrade dripped on Todeschi's face. 

"All right," Todeschi cried in German, "kill me 
too, but first give me water, you " 

The German lowered his rifle in amazement: 
"What, you schwein, you speak the good German? 
Where did you learn it?" 

"In your schools. For Christ's sake — give me 
water — and kill me." 

"What! You live with us and then do this*? 
Schwein I" 

"All right, I will give you water and I will not 
kill you; just to show you how well we can treat a 
prisoner." 

Todeschi was then taken to the field dressing sta- 
tion where according to his own account his mangled 
leg was amputated without the use of any anesthe- 

52 



PRISONERS 



tic. But that may have been because in such a time 
of stress they had none. Later he was exchanged. 

I met Scott in the prison camp a few days later 
and he told his tale. It appears that in the con- 
fusion of the earlier fighting he had become sepa- 
rated from the regiment, became lost and eventually 
floundered into an English battalion. He reported 
to the officer commanding the trench and told his 
story. The officer had no idea where the Patricias 
lay and so ordered Scott to remain with them until 
such time as an inquiry might establish the where- 
abouts of his regiment. 

They were captured, but under less exciting cir- 
cumstances than occurred in our own case. And the 
Germans had word that there was a Canadian 
amongst these English troops. It was one of the 
first things mentioned. They did not say how they 
had acquired their information, but shouted out a 
request for the man to stand forth. When no one 
complied, they questioned each man separately, ask- 
ing him if he was a Canadian or knew aught of one 
in that trench. 

They all lied: "No." The Germans were so cer- 
53 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

tain that they again went over each man in turn, 
examining him. 

Scott was at the end of the line. He began to 
cut the Canadian buttons off his coat and to remove 
his badges. Several men near by assisted and re- 
placed them with such of their own as they could 
spare; each man perhaps contributing a button. 
They had no thread nor time to use it if they had, 
so tacked the buttons into place by all manner of 
makeshifts, such as broken ends of matches thrust 
through holes punched in the cloth ; anything to hold 
the buttons in place and tide the hunted Scott over 
the inspection. He passed. The Germans were 
quite furious. 

Scott and his companions could only guess at the 
cause of this strange conduct, but presumed that the 
Canadian was wanted for special treatment of an 
unfavorable, if not of a final nature. 

To return to our own case : 

About the middle of the afternoon we were herded 
by our guards into a shallow depression a short dis- 
tance in the rear of the trench and there told to lie 
down. The officer and his men returned to the 
trench. Until we were taken back to the trench at 

54 



PRISONERS 



six we were continually sniped at by the Germans 
in the captured trench. We had no recourse but to 
make ourselves as small as possible, which we did. 
And whether owing to the fact that the hollow we 
were lying in prevented our being actually within 
the range of the enemy vision, or whether they were 
merely playing cat and mouse with us, I do not 
know, but none were hit. Young Cox suffered stoi- 
cally. His mangled hand had become badly fouled 
with dirt and filth, and the ragged bones protruded 
through the broken flesh. So, in a quiet interval be- 
tween the sniping periods we hurriedly sawed the 
shattered stump of his hand off with our clasp knives 
and bound it up as best we could. It was not a nice 
task, for him nor us, but he did not so much as grunt 
during the operation. The nearest he came to com- 
plaining was when he asked me to let him lay his 
hand across my body to ease it, at the same time re- 
marking: 'T guess when they get us to Germany 
they'll let us write, and I'll be able to write mother 
and then she'll not know I've lost my hand." He 
was a most valiant and faithful soldier. 

The perpetual rain and mist peculiar to that low- 
lying land added to our wretched condition and in- 

55 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

creased the pain of the wounds that most of us suf- 
fered from. 

At six o'clock our guards returned and curtly 
ordered us to our feet. We were taken back to the 
trench, where our officer friend had us searched 
again. Here for the first time my two corporal's 
stripes were noticed and a mild excitement ensued. 
"Korporal I Korporal !" they exclaimed and crowded 
up the better to inspect me and verify the report, 
and jabbering "Ja! Ja!" Apparently a captured 
corporal was a rarity. Strangely enough, they paid 
little or no attention to the sergeant of our party, al- 
though he had the three stripes of his rank up. 

As I happened to be in the lead of our party and 
the first to enter the trench, I was the first man 
searched and so had to await the examination of the 
others. Worn out by the events of the day and 
the wound I had received early in the morning from 
a shell fragment, I fell asleep against the wall of the 
trench where I sat. 

I was awakened by a poke in the ribs from Scarfe. 
"Time to shift, mate." 

I rose to my feet and, following the instructions 
of the officer, led the way along the trench. The 

56 



PRISONERS 



Germans had already, with their usual industry, got- 
ten the trench into some sort of shape again, with 
the parapet shifted over to the other side and facing 
Belle-waarde Wood. And everywhere along its 
length I noticed the bodies of our dead built into 
it to replace sandbags while others lay on the parados 
at the rear. 

It was not nice. The faces of men we had known 
and had called comrade looked at us now in ghastly 
disarray from odd sections of both walls. Already 
they were taking a brick-like shape from the weight 
of the filled bags on top of them. In places the legs 
and arms protruded, brushing us as we passed. How- 
ever, this was war and quite ethical. 

Naturally we had to crowd by the other occupants 
of the trench. And each took a poke at us as we 
went by, some with their bayonets, saying: "Ver- 
damnt Englander" and: "Englander Schwein," — 
pigs of English. Also quite a number of them spoke 
English after a fashion. There was in these men 
none of the soldier's usual tolerance or good-natured 
pity for an enemy who had fought well and had then 
succumbed to the fortunes of war. Instead, a blind 

57 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

and vicious rage which took no account of our help- 
less condition. 

They cuffed us, they buffeted us, they pricked 
us cruelly with their saw bayonets and then laughed 
and sneered as we flinched and dodged awkwardly 
aside. Then they cursed us. 

Shortly, we were led into the presence of a man 
whom I shall remember if I live to be a hundred. 
He wore glasses and on his upper lip there bloomed 
such a dainty moustache as is affected by "Little 
Willie" as Tommy calls the German Crown Prince. 
He had the eye of a rat. It snapped so cruel a hate 
that one's blood stopped. 

He seized me by the right shoulder with his left 
hand: "You Corporal ! You Corporal!" as though 
that fact of itself condemned me, and at the same 
time tugging at his holster until he found his re- 
volver, which he placed against my temple. Then 
and there I fervently prayed that he would pull the 
trigger and end it all. I was fed up. The all-day 
bombardment, the last terrible slaughter of helpless 
men, the rain and cold, combining with the pain of 
the raw wound in my side, had gotten on my nerves. 

58 



PRISONERS 



With the revolver still at my head I turned to Scarfe : 
"They're going to do us in, Charlie. I only hope 
they'll do it proper. None of that bayonet stuff. 
Bullets for me." Already the Prussians were crowd- 
ing round us threateningly again, with their saw- 
edged bayonets ready, some fixed in the rifle, others 
clasped short, like daggers, for such a butchering as 
they had had earlier in the afternoon, when I had 
been so nearly axed. 

"Might as well kill us outright as scare us to 
death," complained Scarfe bitterly. 

Nevertheless our hearts leaped when a moment 
later our mysterious black officer friend hove in 
sight. Life is sweet. 

He asked them what they did with us. The tab- 
leau answered for itself before the words had left his 
lips. And then we had to listen to our fate dis- 
cussed in language and gesture so eloquent and so 
fraught with terrible importance to us that our sen- 
sitized minds could miss no smallest point of each 
fine shade of cruel meaning. 

''Little Willie" thought it scarce worth their while 
to bother with so small a bag; that it would not be 

59 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

worth the trouble to send a miserable ten of Ver- 
damnt Engldnder back to the Fatherland — Better 
to kill them like the swine they were. 

Our blood froze to hear the man and to see the 
poison of that rat soul of his exuding from his every 
pore, in every gesture and in each fresh inflection of 
his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their 
fierce approval and shook in our faces their bloody 
butcher's bayonets. It was a bitter draught. If they 
had killed us then it would have had to have been 
done in most cold blood, exceeding even the murder 
of Taylor in planned brutality. He at least had 
not known that it was coming and had hot felt this 
insane fear which we now experienced and which 
made us wonder how they would do it. Would each 
have to watch the other's end^ And would it be 
done by bullet or by bayonet*? We greatly feared 
it would be the latter. We pictured ourselves held 
down as hogs are — our throats slit ! 

The dark officer thought otherwise and minced 

no words in the saying. Our hearts leapt out to him 

warmly, in gratitude. 

He sharply ordered them to desist, at which they 
60 



PRISONERS 



slunk sullenly away, as hungry dogs do from a bone. 
I felt an uncomfortable physical sensation and ran 
my hand uneasily beneath my shirt. I was covered 
with a fine sweat. 



6j 



CHAPTER VII 

Pulling the Leg of a German General 

Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again — German Headquar- 
ters — Surprising Kitchener — "Your Infantry's No Good" 
— The Germans Give Us News of the Regiment. 

We were then escorted under heavy guard out 
over the fields in the rear, past the nearby farm- 
house, which was simply filled with snipers. The 
latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably be- 
cause they might have hit some of our numerous 
guards. We seemed to be working right through 
the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the 
troops were massed. Along the road they lay in 
solid formation on both sides. If we had had artil- 
lery to play on them now they would have suffered 
tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented 
a living target. All the way they shouted "Schwein" 
and taunted us in both languages. Every shell-hole, 
farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on the three- 

62 



PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL 

mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood 
contributed its quota. 

The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on 
the night of the third. Across the old trail our fa- 
tigue parties had tramped new ones in the mud, up 
past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Piccadily. 
We passed them all. 

We were marched over to the little settlement of 
pine-bough huts which the regiment had previously 
taken over from the French. The men with me 
greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's 
Hut, there the Commanding Officer's. This was the 
hut in which the brave Joe Waldron had "gone 
West," that on the site of one where fourteen of 
"ours" had stopped a shell while they slept. Mem- 
ories submerged us and made us weak. Even the 
guiding rope that our men had used to hold them- 
selves to the trail of nights still held its place for 
groping German hands. 

Beside it lay the fragments of the French sign- 
boards, jocular advertisements of mud baths for 
trench fever, the hotel this and the maison that. 
One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which 
he said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

board was missing now. And no German signboard 
took its place. Their wit did not run in so richly- 
innocent a channel. 

The huts lay just off the race track in front of the 
ruined chateau, buried deep in the remnants of what 
had once been the beautiful park of a large country 
estate. These huts were now the German head- 
quarters. 

There was as much English as German talked 
there that day. Everywhere there was cooking go- 
ing on, mostly in portable camp kitchens. 

As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a 
pipe observed nonchalantly: "You fellows are 
lucky. Our orders were to take no Canadian pris- 
oners." 

The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact 
and there was about his remark so simple an air of 
directness and of finality that there was no escaping 
his sincerity, unduly interested though we were. 

Another officer said "Englander*?" 

The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised 
his brows and shoulders: "Uhh!" 

A younger officer came up : "Never mind, boys: 
Your turn to-day. Might be mine to-morrow." 

64 




WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A SUPPORT TRENCH 
AFTER AN ATTACK. 



PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL 

Turning to the others, he too said: "Englander?" 
"No! Canadian." 

"Oh I" And he appeared to be pleasantly sur- 
prised. He asked me for a souvenir and pointed to 
the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red cloth 
"P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. 
But I had already shoved my few trinkets down my 
puttees while lying back of the trench that after- 
noon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps. 

The young officer gave him in return a carved nut 
with silver filigree work and gave another man a 
silver crucifix for the bronze maple leaves from the 
collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he 
gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give 
us coffee. 

That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of 
anything we received then or for some time to come. 
Since the bombardment and our wounding, our 
nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, 
bad or indifferent, would steady the quivering harp 
strings of our nerves. And a cigarette did that. 

The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. 
They wanted information, just as ours would have 
done under similar circumstances, but these took a 

65 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

different method to acquire it. As before, in the 
trench, they selected me for the spokesman. The 
senior officer, a general apparently, addressed me: 
"How many troops are there in front of our attack?" 

I lied: "I don't know." 

He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you 
this, my man : We have a pretty good idea of how 
many troops lay behind you and if in any particular 
you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard 
with all of you. Now answer my question I" His 
English was good. 

I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the ter- 
rible truth. That was certain. So I took a chance. 
"Three divisions." He appeared to be satisfied. 
The fact was, there were none behind us. We were 
utterly without supporting troops. 

"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them 
are there here?" 

"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir." 

"Don't tell me that : I know better. They've been 
out here for months." 

"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth 
this time. 

"Yes," he shouted angrily. 
66 



PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL 

"No," I flung back. 

"Well, how many of them are there'?" 

The division yarn had gone down well. And per- 
haps I was slightly heated. My spirit ran ahead of 
my judgment. "Five and a half to seven million," I 
said. 

He exploded. And called me everything but a 
soldier. I could not help but reflect that I had over- 
done it a bit. And I certainly thought that I was 
"for it" then and there. 

To make matters worse he asked the others and 
they, profiting by my mistake and following the lead 
of the first man questioned, put Kitchener's army at 
four and a half million; which was only a trifle of 
four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. 
When he came to me again I confirmed the latter fig- 
ure, explaining my earlier statement by my lack of 
exact knowledge. And so that particular storm blew 
over. 

The general came back to me again. "You Ca- 
nadians thought this was going to be a picnic, didn't 
you*?" He was very sarcastic. 

"No, we didn't, sir." 

^7 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 



"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk 
through to Berlin, didn't you*?" 

"Why, no. We thought it was the other way 
about, sir," I ventured. 

He shifted : "Well, what do you think of us any- 
how?' 

"Your artillery was all right but your infantry 
was no good." I began to feel shaky again. How- 
ever, he took that calmly enough. 

"Oh ! So our infantry was no good." 

"We could have held them all right, sir." 

He ruminated on that a moment, rumbled in his 
throat and abruptly changed the subject, in an un- 
pleasant fashion, however. 

"You're the fellows we want to get hold of. You 
cut the throats of our wounded." 

I denied it and we argued back and forth over 
that for several minutes, and very heatedly. He re- 
ferred to St. Julien and said that this thing had oc- 
curred there. I said and quite truthfully that we 
had not been at St. Julien, that we were in the Im- 
perial and not the Canadian Army and had been 
spectators in near-by trenches of the St. Julien af- 
fair. I even went into some detail to explain that 

68 



PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL 

we were a special corps of old soldiers who, not be- 
ing able to rejoin their old regiments, had at the out- 
break of war formed one of their own and had been 
accepted as such and sent to France months ahead 
of the Canadian contingent. I added that I myself 
had just rejoined the regiment, having got my 
"Blighty" in March at St. Eloi and as proof of my 
other statements I further volunteered that I was 
one of the 2nd Gordons and after the South African 
War had gone to Canada where I had finished my 
reserve several years since. 

He listened but was plainly unconvinced. An- 
other officer broke in : "I can explain it, sir. These 
men were in the Both Brigade and the 27th Division. 
Colonel Farquhar was their Commanding Officer and 
Captain Buller took command when Colonel Far- 
quhar was killed." We stared at one another in 
amazement, for it was all quite true. 

This finished that examination. We did not tell 
them that Colonel Buller had been blinded a few 
days before and had been succeeded by that Major 
Hamilton Gault who had been so largely instru- 
mental in raising us. 

None of our wounds had received the slightest 
69 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

attention. Cox in particular suffered cruelly but 
refused to whimper. Royston's head was swollen to 
the size of a water bucket and he was in great pain. 
We left them here and never saw them again. Cox 
died two weeks later of a blood poisoning which 
was the combined result of our rough surgery and 
the wanton neglect of our captors. I do not think 
he was ever able to write his mother as he wished. 
At least she wrote me later for information. There 
was no need of his dying even though it might have 
been necessary to have amputated his arm higher 
up. Royston was exchanged to Switzerland and re- 
covered from his wounds except for the loss of an 
eye. 



70 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Princess Patricia's German Uncle 

Roulers — The Old Woman and the Gentle Uhlans — Bil- 
leted in a Church — Quizzed by a Prince. 

We were marched to Roulers, which we reached 
well after dark. A considerable crowd of soldiers 
and civilians awaited our coming. The Belgian 
women and children congregated in front of the 
church while we waited to be let in, and threw us 
apples and cigarettes. The uhlans and infantrymen 
rushed them with the flat side of their swords and 
the butts of their muskets; and mistreated them. 
They knocked one old woman down quite close to 
where I stood. So we had to do without and were 
not even permitted to pick up the gifts that lay at 
our feet, much less the old woman. 

The church had been used as a stable quite re- 
cently and the stone-flagged floor was deep with the 
decayed straw and accumulated iilth of men and 
horses. We lay down in it and got what rest we 

71 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

could for the remainder of the night. There were 
about one hundred and fifty prisoners in all — Shrop- 
shires, Cheshires, King's Royal Rifles and other Brit- 
ish regiments — all from our division and mostly 
from our brigade. Other small parties continued to 
come in during the night, but there were no more 
P. P.'s. In the morning a large tub of water was 
carried in and each man was given a bit of black 
bread and a slice of raw fat bacon. The latter was 
salty and so thoroughly unappetizing that I cannot 
recall that any one ate his ration, for in spite of the 
fact that we had been twenty-four hours without 
food, we were so upset by the experiences we had 
undergone, so shattered by shell fire and lack of rest 
that we were perhaps inclined to be more critical 
of our food than normal men would have been. 

Shortly afterward a high German officer came in 
with his staff. He was a stout and well-built man 
of middle age or over, typically German in his gen- 
eral characteristics but not half bad looking. His 
uniform was covered with braid and medals. Every 
one paid him the utmost deference. He stopped in 
the middle of the room. 

"Are there any Canadians here?" 
72 



THE PRINCESS PATRICIA'S GERMAN UNCLE 

I stepped forward. "Yes, sir." 

"I mean the Princess Patricia's Canadians." 

"Yes, sir. I am. And here's some more of them," 
and I pointed at the prostrate figures of my com- 
panions, where they sprawled on the flagstones. 

"Princess Patricia's Regiment*?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well, the Princess Patricia is my niece — awfully 
nice girl. I hope it won't be long before I see her 
again." 

I grinned : "Well, I hope it won't be long before 
I see her, too, sir." 

The other fellows joined us, the straw and the 
smell of it still sticking to their clothes as they 
formed a little knot about the Prince and his staff. 

The scene was incongruous, the smart uniforms of 
the immaculately kept staff officers contrasting 
strangely with our own unkempt foulness. We oc- 
cupied the centre of the stage. Around us were 
grouped the men of our sister regiments, most of 
them lying on the floor in a dazed condition. There 
were few who came forward to listen. They were 
too tired, and to them at least, this was merely an 
incident — one of a thousand more important ones. 

7Z 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Odd parts of clothes hung on the ornate images 
and decorations of the room. A German rifle hung 
by its sling from the patient neck of a life-sized 
Saviour, while further over, the vermin-infested shirt 
of a Britisher hung over the rounded breasts of a 
brooding Madonna, with the Infant in her lap. 

At the door a small group of guards stood stiffly 
to a painful attention and continued so to do whilst 
royalty touched them with the shadow of its wings. 

The Prince questioned us further and I told him 
that I had been on a guard of honor to the Prin- 
cess when she had been a child and when her father, 
the Duke of Connaught had been the General Officer 
Commanding at Aldershot. 

He laughed back at us and was altogether very 
friendly. "You'll go to a good camp and you'll be 
all right if you behave yourselves." 

Scarfe shoved in his oar here, grousing in good 
British-soldier fashion: 'T don't call it very good 
treatment when they steal the overcoats from 
wounded men." 

"Who did that^" He was all steel, and I saw 
a change come over the officers of the staff. 

"The chaps that took us prisoners," said Scarfe. 
74 



THE PRINCESS PATRICIA'S GERMAN UNCLE 

"What regiment were they?" The Prince glanced 
at an aide, who hastily drew out a notebook and 
began to take down our replies. 

"The 2 1st Prussians, sir." 

"Do you know the men*?" 

"Their faces but not their names." 

"Of what rank was the officer in charge?" 

We did not know, but thought him a company 
officer of the rank of captain perhaps. He asked 
for other particulars which we gave to the best of 
our knowledge. 

"I'll attend to that," he said. However, we heard 
no more of it. We refrained from complaining 
about the actual ill-treatment and indignities we had 
been subjected to, the murder of our unoffending 
comrades, or the lack of attention to our wounds, as 
we rightly judged that we should only have earned 
the enmity of our guards. 

"May I have your ca*^ badge?" the Prince asked, 
decently enough. 

I lied brazenly: "Sorry, sir; I've lost mine." 

The fact was I had shoved it down under my 
puttees while lying back of the trench the previous 
afternoon. 

75 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Scarfe said : "You can have mine, sir." 
He took it. "Thanks so much." He glanced at 
the aide again; rather sharply this time, I thought. 
The latter blushed and hastily extracted a wallet, 
from which he handed Scarfe a two-mark piece, equal 
to one and ten pence, or forty-four cents. He gave 
us his name before leaving, and my recollection is 
that it was something like Eitelbert. Evidently he 
was a brother of the Duchess of Connaught, whom 
we knew to have been a German princess whose 
brothers and other male relatives all enjoyed high 
commands among our foes. 



1^ 



CHAPTER IX 

How THE German Red Cross Tended the 
Canadian Wounded 

"Come Out Canadians!"— The Crucifixion— "Nix ! Nix!" 
— Civilian Hate — "Englander Schwein!" 

We remained in the fouled church all of that day 
and night and until the following morning. No 
more food appeared. We were marched down to the 
railroad under heavy escort, crowded into freight 
cars and locked in. The guards were distributed in 
cars of their own, alternating with ours. Our 
wounds remained unattended to. 

At every station they thundered : "Come out, Ca- 
nadians !" They lined us up in a row while a staff 
officer put the same questions to us in nearly every 
case. They were particularly interested in the qual- 
ity of our rations and asked if it was not true that 
we were starving and if our pay had not been 
stopped. The guards invariably explained to the 

77 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

civilians that these were the Canadians who had cut 
the throats of the German wounded. 

We did not know how to explain the prevalence 
of this impression. On the contrary, we were aware 
of the story of the crucifixion of three of the Ca- 
nadian Division during Ypres. The tale had come 
smoking hot to our men in the Polygon Wood 
trenches during the great battle. It gave in great 
detail all the salient facts which were that after re- 
capturing certain lost positions, the men of a certain 
regiment had discovered the body of one of their ser- 
geants, together with those of two privates, crucified 
on the doors of a cowshed and a barn. German 
bayonets had been driven through their hands and 
feet and their contorted faces gave every appearance 
of their having died in great agony. This story was 
and is generally believed throughout all ranks of the 
Canadian Army. For its truth I cannot vouch. 

We knew that our own men had never mistreated 
any prisoners and had in fact usually done quite the 
reverse. How far other regiments may have gone 
in retaliation for what was known as "The Crucifix- 
ion," it is impossible to say. That prisoners may 
have been killed is possible, for such things become 

78 



THE GERMAN RED CROSS 



an integral part of war once the enemy has so of- 
fended. But we could not believe that there had 
been any cutting of throats as that would imply a 
sheer cold-bloodedness that we could not stomach. 

The mob surged around and reviled us, while the 
guards, in high good humour, translated their re- 
marks, unless, as was frequently the case, they were 
made to the officials in English for our benefit. The 
other British soldiers were left in their cars. 

Our wounded were getting very badly off by this 
time. It was impossible to avoid trampling on one 
another as the car was very dark at best and the one 
small window in the roof was closed as soon as we 
drew into a station. When taken out we were un- 
der heavy escort and were allowed no opportunity to 
clean up the accumulated filth of the car. We suf- 
fered terribly for food and water, and some of the 
wounds began to turn, so that what with exhaustion 
and all, we grew very weak. 

At one station the guards took us out and made us 
line up to watch them eat of a hearty repast which 
the Red Cross women had just brought them. And 
we were very hungry. When, we too, asked for food 
they said: "Nix! Nix I" The crowds met us at 

79 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

every station and included women of all classes, 
who called us Engldnder Schwein and who at no 
time gave us the slightest assistance, but, instead, 
devoted themselves to the guard. 

Other men told us later that Red Cross women 
had spat in their drinking water and in their food. 
There was no opportunity for this in our case as we 
did not receive any of either. 

We did not receive any food during this trip, 
which lasted from the morning of one day until the 
night of the next. We had gone since the day of 
our capture on the coffee received at headquarters in 
Polygon Wood and the single issue of bread, water 
and bacon received in the church, the latter of which 
we could not eat; a total of three days and nights 
on that one issue of rations. 

We pulled into Giessen at eleven, the night of 
May tenth. The citizens made a Roman holiday of 
the occasion and the entire population turned out to 
see the Englander Schwein. There was a guard for 
every prisoner, and two lines of fixed bayonets. The 
mob surged around, heaping on us insults and blows ; 
particularly the women. With hate in their eyes, 
they spat on us. We had to take that or the bayo- 

80 



THE GERMAN RED CROSS 



net. These were the acts not only of the rabble, 
but also of the people of good appearance and ad- 
dress. 

One very well-dressed woman rushed up. Under 
other circumstances I should have judged her to 
have been a gentlewoman. She shrieked invectives 
at us as she forced her way through the crowd. 
"SchweinI" she screamed, and struck at the man 
next me. He snapped his shoulders back as a sol- 
dier does at attention. Then, drawing deep from the 
very bottom of her lungs, she spat the mass full in 
his face. The muscles of his face twitched painfully 
but he held his eyes to the front and stared past his 
tormentor, seeing other things. 



8i 



CHAPTER X 

The Curious Concoctions of the Chef at 

GlESSEN 

Oliver Twist at Giessen — Acorn Coffee and Shadow Soup 
— Chestnut Soup — Fostering Racial Hatred. 

We had a mile-and-a-half march to the prison 
camp. Those who were past walking were put in 
street cars and sent to the laager, where upon our 
arrival we were shoved into huts for the night, sup- 
perless, of course. This was our introduction to the 
prison camp of Giessen. 

The next morning we each received three-quarters 
of a pint of acorn coffee, so called, horrible-tasting 
stuff; and a loaf of black bread — ^half potatoes and 
half rye- — weighing two hundred and fifty grams, 
or a little more than half a pound, among five 
men. This allowed a piece about three by three by 
four inches to each man for the day's ration. The 
coffee consisted of acorns and four pounds of burned 
barley boiled in one hundred gallons of water. There 

82 



CURIOUS CONCOCTIONS OF THE CHEF 

was no sugar or milk. My curiosity led me later to 
get this and other recipes from the fat French cook. 

All that day and for several following, official 
and guards were busy numbering and renumbering 
us and assigning us to our companies. They were 
hopelessly German about it, and did it so many times 
and very thoroughly. There were twelve thousand 
men in the camp and eight hundred in the laager. 
The majority were Russian and French with a fair- 
ish sprinkling of Belgians. There were perhaps six 
hundred British in the entire camp. The various 
nationalities were mixed up and each section given a 
hut very similar to those American and British troops 
occupy in their own countries. A number of smaller 
camps in the neighbouring districts were governed 
from this central one. 

For dinner we had shadow soup, so named for 
obvious reasons. The recipe in my diary reads: 
"For eight hundred men, two hundred gallons of 
water, one small bag of potatoes and one packet of 
herbs." 

To make matters worse the vegetables issued at 
this camp were in a decayed condition and contin- 
ued to come to us so. 

83 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Another staple dinner ration was ham soup. This 
was the usual two hundred gallons of water boiled 
with ten pounds of ham rinds, ten pounds of cabbage 
and twenty pounds of potatoes. The ham rind had 
hair on it but we used to fish for it at that and con- 
sidered ourselves lucky to get a piece. Oatmeal 
soup, another meal, consisted of two hundred gal- 
lons of water, two pounds of currants and fifty 
pounds of oatmeal ; chestnut soup, two hundred gal- 
lons of water, one hundred pounds of whole chest- 
nuts and ten pounds of potatoes. It was a horrible 
concoction and my diary has: "To be served hot 
and thrown out." 

Meat soup was two hundred gallons of water, 
ten pounds of meat, one small bag of potatoes and 
ten pounds of vegetables. This was the most nutri- 
tious of the lot. Unfortunately for us, the small 
portion of meat and most of the potatoes were given 
to the French, both because the cook and all his as- 
sistants were Frenchmen and because the authorities 
willed it so. 

This was usually managed without any apparent 
unfairness by serving the British first and the French 
last, with the result that the one received a tin full 

84 



Wednesday 8 



Thursday 9 



Fiiday 10 




RECIPES FROM CORPORAL EDWARD S DIARY. 



CURIOUS CONCOCTIONS OF THE CHEF 

of hot water that was too weak to run out, while the 
Frenchmen's spoons stood to attention in the thicker 
mess they found in the bottom. This, with other 
things, contributed to make bad blood between the 
two races. A great show was made of stirring up 
the mess, but it was a pure farce. 

Rice soup consisted of two hundred gallons of 
water, fifty pounds of rice, twenty pounds of pota- 
toes and one pound of currants; bean soup, two 
hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of beans, and 
twenty pounds of potatoes ; pork soup, two hundred 
gallons of water, ten pounds of pork and fifty pounds 
of potatoes. Porridge was made of two hundred 
gallons of water, fifteen pounds of oatmeal and two 
pounds of barley. The diary states : "To be served 
hot as a drink." 

Once in two months a ration of sausage was dished 
out. For breakfast once a week there was one pint 
of acorn coffee without sugar or milk and one and a 
half square inches of Limburger cheese. To quote 
from the diary : "Before serving, open all windows 
and doors. Then send for the Russians to take it 
away." 

The Germans discriminated against the British 
85 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

prisoners. When there was any disagreeable duty; 
the cry went up for "der Englander." The much- 
sought- for cookhouse jobs all went to the French, 
who waxed fat in consequence. No Britisher was 
ever allowed near the cookhouse. The French had 
for the most part been there for some time, and, their 
country lying so close by; they were receiving par- 
cels. We were not, and this made the food problem 
a very serious one for us. Their supplies were re- 
ceived through Switzerland which was the one an- 
chor to windward for so many of us in this and other 
respects. 

At first the French used to give us a certain amount 
of their own food, but eventually ceased to do so. 
Most of them worked down in the town daily and 
could "square" the guard long enough to buy to- 
bacco at twenty-five pfennigs — or two and a half 
pence — a package, which they sold to us later at 
eighty pfennigs — until we got on to their profiteer- 
ing. 



86 



CHAPTER XI 

The Way They Have AT GiESSEN 

"Raus !" — The Strafe Barracks — The Appeal for Casement 
—Why Parcels Should Be Sent— A Hell on Earth- 
That Brickyard Fatigue — Gott Strafe England — Slow 
Starvation — Merciless Discipline — Canadian Humor — 
The Debt We Owe — Inoculating for Typhoid? — 
Joseph's Coat of Many Colors — The Russian Who Un- 
wound the Rag — The Monotony of the Wire — Teaching 
the Germans the British Salute. 

Except for the starving, as I look back now, Gies- 
sen was not such a bad camp as such places go. At 
least it was the best that we were to know. The 
discipline, of course, was fairly severe, but on the 
other hand the Commandant did not trouble us a 
great deal. The petty annoyances were harder to 
endure. Frequently we would get the "Raus I" at 
half-hour intervals by day or night; "Raus out I" 
"Raus in !" and so on. 

We never knew what our tormentors wanted but 
supposed it to be a systematic attempt to break 

87 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

our spirit and our nerve by the simple expedient 
of habitually interfering with our sleep so that we 
would become like the Russians. They were mostly 
utterly broken in spirit and had the air of beaten 
dogs, so that they cringed and fawned to their mas- 
ters. 

The least punishment meted out for the most 
trifling offense was three days' cells. Some got ten 
years for refusing to work in munition and steel fac- 
tories, particularly British and Canadians. 

There are large numbers of both who are to-day 
serving out sentences of from eighteen months to ten 
years in the military fortresses of Germany under cir- 
cumstances of the greatest cruelty. 

The so-called courts-martial were mockeries of 
trials. The culprit was simply marched up to the 
orderly room, received his sentence and marched 
away again. He was allowed no defence worthy of 
the name. 

Some of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infan- 
try were "warned" for work in a munitions fac- 
tory. When the time came around they were taken 
away but refused to work and so they were knocked 
about quite a bit. One was shot in the leg and an- 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

Other bayoneted through the hip, and all were sent 
back to camp, where they were awarded six weeks 
in the punishment camp, known as the strafe bar- 
racks. 

This was a long hut in which were two rows of 
stools a few paces apart. The Raus blew for the 
culprits at five-thirty. At six they were marched to 
the hut and made to sit down in two rows facing 
one another, at attention — that is, body rigid, head 
thrown well back, chest out, hands held stiffly at 
the sides and eyes straight to the front — for two 
hours I Meanwhile the sentries marched up and 
down the lane, watching for any relaxation or lev- 
ity. If so much as a face was pulled at a twinkling 
eye across the way, another day's strafing was added 
to the penalty. At the end of the two hours one 
hour's rest was allowed, during which the prisoners 
could walk about in the hut but c©uld not lie 
down! This continued all day until "Lights out." 
For six weeks. No mail, parcels, writing or exer- 
cise was permitted the prisoners during that time, 
and the already scanty rations were cut. 

During good behavior we were allowed two post 
cards and two letters a month, with nine lines to 

89 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

the former and thirteen to the page of the latter. 
No more, no less. Each letter had four pages of 
the small, private-letter size. The name and ad- 
dress counted as a line. Mine was Kriegsgefingenen- 
laager, Kompagnie No. 6, Barackue No. A. The 
writing had to be big and easily read and, in the let- 
ters, on four sides of the paper. No complaint or 
discussion of the war was permitted. Fully one-half 
of those written were returned for infringements, or 
fancied ones, of these rules. Sometimes when the 
censor was irritated they were merely chucked into 
the fire. And as they had also to pass the English 
censor it is no wonder that many families wondered 
why their men did not write. 

We were there for three months before our par- 
cels began to arrive. We considered ourselves lucky 
if we received six out of ten sent, and with half the 
contents of the six intact. In the larger camps the 
chances of receipt were better. The small camps 
were merely units attached to and governed by the 
larger ones, which handled the mail before giving 
it to the authorities at the smaller ones. 

Thus, a man who was "attached" to Giessen camp, 
although perhaps one hundred miles away from it, 

90 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

had to submit to the additional delay and chance of 
loss and theft included in the censoring of the parcel 
at Giessen as well as at the actual place of his con- 
finement. 

This doubled the chances of fault-finding and of 
theft. Knowing this to be true, I most earnestly 
recommend the sending of parcels. True, a large 
proportion of them are not received, but those that 
are represent the one salvation of the prisoner-of- 
war in German hands. So terribly true is this that 
when we began to receive parcels at irregular inter- 
vals, we used regularly to acknowledge to our friends 
the receipt of parcels which we had never received. 
This was the low cunning developed by our treat- 
ment. If advised that a parcel of tea, sugar or other 
luxuries had been sent and it did not appear after 
weeks of patient waiting, we knew that we should 
never see that parcel. Nevertheless, we usually 
wrote and thanked the donor and acknowledged the 
receipt, fearful otherwise that he or she should say: 
"What's the use^" and send no more. And we were 
not allowed to tell the truth — that it had been 
stolen. 

The first three months of our stay at Giessen were 
91 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

probably the worst of all, including as they did the 
transition period to this life. It seemed then a hell 
on earth. The slow starvation was the worst. Once, 
in desperation, I gave a Frenchman my good boots 
for his old ones and two and a half marks, and then 
gave sixty pfennigs of this to the French cook for 
a bread ration. Again, in going down the hut one 
day, I espied a flat French loaf cut into four pieces, 
drying on the window sill. Seizing one piece, I 
tucked it under my tunic and passed on before the 
loss was discovered. Some of the British could be 
seen at times picking over the sour refuse in the 
barrels. This amused the Germans very much. We 
endeavoured to get cookhouse jobs for the pickings 
to be had, but could not do so. At a later date, 
when the Canadian Red Cross, Lady Farquhar, Mrs. 
Hamilton Gault and our families were sending us 
packages regularly, we made out all right. 

Some English societies were in the habit of send- 
ing books, music and games to the prisoners but none 
of these ever reached the group with whom I asso- 
ciated, even before our later actions put us quite 
beyond the German pale. 

The appeal for Casement and the Irish Brigade 
92 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

was made to us. A number of prisoners were taken 
apart and the matter broached privately to them. 
Pamphlets on the freeing of Ireland were also dis- 
tributed. I did not see any one go over, and an 
Irishman who was detailed with another Canadian 
and myself on a brickyard fatigue said that they had 
recruited only forty in the camp. The whole thing 
turned out to be a failure. 

There were twelve of us all told on that brick- 
yard job. Three or four shoveled clay into the mix- 
ing machine, two more filled the little car which 
two others pushed along the track of the narrow- 
gauge railroad. We were guarded by four civilian 
Germans of some home defense corps, all of whom 
labored with us. The two trammers used to start 
the car, hop on the brake behind and let it run of 
its own momentum down the incline to the edge of 
the bank where it would be checked for dumping. 
Sometimes we forgot to brake the car so that it 
would ricochet on in a flying leap off the end of the 
track, and so on over the dump. The guards would 
rage and swear but could prove nothing so long as 
our fellows did not get too raw and do this too fre- 
quently. 

93 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

One day we shovelers decided to add to the gaiety 
of nations. While one attracted the guards' atten- 
tion elsewhere we slipped a chunk of steel into the 
mess. There was a grinding crash, and a large cog- 
wheel tore its way through the roof. In a moment, 
the air was full of machinery and German words. 
It was a proper wreck. The guards ran around gesti- 
culating angrily, tearing their hair and threatening 
us, while we endeavoured to look surprised. It is 
reasonable to suppose that we were unsuccessful, for 
we were hustled back to camp and drew five days' 
cells each from the Commandant. There was no 
trial. He merely sentenced us. 

United States Ambassador Gerard only came to 
Giessen once in my time there, and that was while 
I was off at one of the detached camps, so I had no 
opportunity of observing the result. 

We knew very little of what was going on in 
the outside world. The guards were not allowed to 
converse with us, and if one was known to speak 
English he was removed. However, they were more 
or less curious about us so that a certain amount of 
clandestine conversation occurred. Some were cer- 
tain that they were going to win the war. Others 

94 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

said: "England has too much money. Germany 
will never win." They used frequently to gather 
the Russians, Belgians and French together and lec- 
ture them on England's sins. They said that Eng- 
land was letting them do all the fighting, bleeding 
them white of their men and treasure so as to come 
out at the end of the war with the balance of power 
necessary for her plan of retaining Constantinople 
and the Cinque Ports of France. Many were con- 
vinced, and this did not add to the pleasantness of 
our lot. 

The notorious Continental Times was circulated 
amongst us freely in both French and English edi- 
tions. It regularly gave us a most appalling list of 
German victories and it specialised in abuse of the 
English. We counted up in one month a total of 
two million prisoners captured by the Germans on 
all fronts. 

As I have said, Giessen was the best camp of all, 
barring the starvation. But the discipline there was 
merciless. The laager was inclosed by a high wire 
fence which we were forbidden to approach within 
four feet of. A Russian sergeant overstepped that 
mark one day to shout something to a friend in an 

95 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 



adjoining laager. The sentry shouted at him. He 
either failed to hear or did not understand. The 
sentry killed him without hesitation. 

A Belgian started over one day with some left- 
over soup which he purposed giving to the Russians. 
The sentry would not let him pass. He went back 
and told his mate. The latter, a kindly little fel- 
low, thinking that the sentry had not understood the 
nature of the mission, decided to try himself. The 
sentry stopped him. He attempted to argue. The 
sentry pushed him roughly back. He struck the 
German. The latter dropped him with a blow on 
the head, and while he lay unconscious shoved the 
bayonet into him. It was done quite coolly and 
methodically, without heat. He was promoted for 
it. We were told that he had done a good thing 
and that we should get the same if we did not be- 
have. 

A Canadian who was forced to work in a muni- 
tions plant and whose task included the replacing of 
waste in the wheel boxes of cars enjoyed himself for 
a while, lifting the greasy waste out and replacing it 
with sand. He got ten years for that. 

The German in charge of our laager hated the ver- 
96 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

damnt Engldnder and lost no opportunity of bull- 
dozing and threatening us. One of the Canadians 
who had been in the American Navy was unusually 
truculent. The German purposely bunted him one 
day. "Don't do that again I" The German re- 
peated the act. The sailor jolted him in the jaw so 
that he went to dreamland for fifteen minutes. The 
prisoner was taken to the guardroom and we never 
heard his ultimate fate, but at the ruling rate he 
was lucky if he got off with ten years. 

It is men like this to whom our Government and 
people owe such a debt as may be paid only in a 
small degree by our insistence after the war that they 
be given their liberty. A greater glory is theirs than 
that of the soldier. They wrought amongst a world 
of foes, knowing their certain punishment, but dar- 
ing it rather than assist that foe's efforts against 
their country. 

One day we were told that we must be inoculated 
in the arm against typhoid. We thought nothing of 
that. But the next day men began to gather in 
groups so that the guards shouted roughly at them, 
bidding them not to mutter and whisper so. 

Where the word came from I know not. It may 
97 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

have emanated in the fears of some active imagi- 
nation on the chance and truthful word of a guard, 
flung in derision at some desperate man, or in a 
kindlier mood and in warning. The word was that 
we were to be inoculated with the germs of consump- 
tion. I understand that it appeared also in the 
papers at home. It seemed horrible beyond words 
to us. The idea appeared crazy but was equally on 
a par with the events we witnessed daily. Myself, 
I planned to take no chances; if it were humanly 
possible. 

We were all ordered to parade for the inocula- 
tion. I hid myself with a few others and so escaped 
the operation. Nothing was said so I could only 
suppose that they failed to check us up as it was not 
in keeping with the German character as we had 
come to know it to miss any opportunity of cor- 
rective punishment even though the inoculation had 
been for our own good. 

It is true that some of the men so inoculated fell 
prey to consumption. On the other hand one of 
them had had a well defined case of it before, and 
it was almost certain that the living conditions pre- 
vailing amongst us would insure the appearance of 

98 




FELLOW PRISONERS AT CEISSEX. FUU.M LEFT TO KIGIIT: A CHESHIRE 
REGIMENT MAN, A SIBERIAN RUSSIAN, AN EAST YORKSHIRE 
LIGHT INFANTRYMAN AND A GORDON HIGHLANDER. 




■^?: 



FELLOW PRISONERS AT GEISSEN. THREE HIGHLANDERS AND A 
YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN. 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

the disease so that we had no proof that any man 
was so inoculated. Some of the men so affected 
were sent to Switzerland for the benefit of the moun- 
tain air through an arrangement made by the Red 
Cross with the Swiss authorities. 

One of our guards was subject to fits and habitu- 
ally ran amuck amongst us, abusing some of the 
prisoners in a painful fashion. We made complaint 
of this through the proper channels, for which crime 
the officer in charge stopped our fires and other privi- 
leges for the time being. 

Most of the men wore prison uniforms or in some 
cases, suits sent from England which were altered by 
the authorities to conform to their regulations. These 
required that if one was not in a distinctive and 
enemy uniform that broad stripes of bright colored 
cloth be set into the seam of the trousers ; not sewed 
on, but into the goods. A large diamond shaped 
piece or else a square of such cloth was set into the 
breast and back of the tunic. I preferred my uni- 
form, dilapidated though it was. We were permit- 
ted the choice, probably less out of kindness than 
because of the saving involved. 

There was a big simple giant of a Russian here 
99 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

who was badly sprung at the knees. He had been 
forced to work during the winter in an underground 
railway station near Berlin. He had had no shoes 
and had stood in the water for weeks, digging. He 
was very badly crippled in consequence. 

Some four hundred Russians came to us after the 
fall of Warsaw. They were mostly wounded and 
all rotten. On the three months' march to Giessen 
the wounded had received absolutely no attention 
other than their own. Here we had a crazy German 
doctor, a mediocre French one and Canadian order- 
lies. If an Englishman went to the hospital for 
treatment it was "Vick!" — Get out. These Rus- 
sians were treated similarly. The French fared bet- 
ter. One big, fine-looking Russian, with a ifilthy 
mass of rags wound round his arm, reported for at- 
tention. They unwound the rag and his arm 
dropped off. He died, with five others, that after- 
noon, and God only knows how many more on the 
trip they had just finished. 

They were buried in a piano case, together. Usu- 
ally they were placed in packing cases. We asked 
for a flag with which to cover them as soldiers should 

loo 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

be. They asked what that was for and there it 
ended. 

Another Russian had a foul arm which leaked 
badly so that it was not only painful to him but of- 
fensive to the rest of us. Nothing was done for 
him. 

They were all thoroughly cowed, as are dogs 
that have been illtreated. And they jumped to it 
when a German spoke — excepting two of their of- 
ficers, who refused to take down their epaulets when 
ordered to do so. We did not learn how they fared. 
These were the only captive officers of any national- 
ity whom we saw. 

We became sick of the sight of one another as 
even the best of friends do under such abnormal 
conditions. For variety I often walked around the 
enclosure with a Russian. Neither of us had the 
faintest idea what the other said, but it was a 
change ! 

The monotony of the wire was terrible — and just 
outside it in the lane formed by the encircling set of 
wire, the dogs, with their tongues out, walked back 
and forth, eyeing us. 

There was so little to talk about. Wc knew noth- 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

ing and could only speculate on the outcome of the 
commonest events which came to us on the tongue 
of rumour or arose out of our own sad thoughts. 

The authorities were not satisfied with our recog- 
nition — or lack of it — of their officers and took us 
out to practice saluting drill — a thing always de- 
tested by soldiers, especially veterans. The idea was 
to make us salute visiting German officers properly, 
in the German fashion and not in our own. Theirs 
consisted of saluting with the right hand only, with 
the left held stiffly straight at the side, while our 
way was to salute with the hand farthest from the 
officer, giving "Eyes left" or "Eyes right" as the case 
might be, and with the free hand swinging loosely 
with the stride. 

So a school of us were led out to this. The very 
atmosphere was tense with sullen rebellion. The 
guards eyed us askance. The officer stood at the 
left awaiting us; beyond him and on the other side 
of the road, a post. 

An unteroffizier ordered us to march by, one by 
one, to give the Herr Offizier "Augen Links" in the 
German fashion, and to the post, which represented 

102 



THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN 

another officer, an "Augen Rechts" when we should 
come to it. 

"I'll see him in hell first," I muttered to the man 
next me. I was in the lead of the party. I shook 
with excitement and fear of I knew not what. 

As the command rang out I stepped out with a 
swing, and with the action, decision came to me. As 
I approached the officer he drew up slightly and 
looked at me expectantly. 

I gave him a stony stare, and passed on. 

A few more steps and I reached the post. I pulled 
back my shoulders with a smart jerk, got my arms 
to swinging freely, snapped my head round so that 
my eyes caught the post squarely and swung my 
left hand up in a clean-cut parabola to "Eyes right," 
in good old regimental order. 

A half dozen shocked sentries came up on the 
double. It was they who were excited now. I was 
master of myself and the situation. The unteroffi- 
zier ordered me to repeat and salute. I did so — liter- 
ally. The officer was, to all outward appearances, 
the only other person there who remained unmoved. 
My ardour had cooled by this time, and his very si- 
lence seemed worse than the threats of the guard. 

103 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Nor was I exactly in love with my self-appointed 
task. Nevertheless, I saw my mates watching me 
and inwardly applauding. I was ashamed to quit. 
I did it again. That won me another five days' cells. 



104 



CHAPTER XII 

The Escape 

Picking a Pal for Switzerland — Cold Feet — The Talk in the 
Wood — Nothing Succeeds Like Success and — ! — Sim- 
mons and Brumley Try Their Hand. 

Mervin Simmons of the 7th, and Frank Brum- 
ley of the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary 
Force were planning to escape. Word of it leaked 
through to me. This added fuel to the fire of my 
own similar ambition. They, and I too, thought that 
it was not advisable for more than two to travel to- 
gether. I began to look around for a partner. I 
"weighed up" all my comrades. It was unwise to 
broach the subject to too many of them. I bided 
my time until a certain man having dropped re- 
marks which indicated certain sporting proclivities, I 
broached the subject to him. He was most en- 
thusiastic. We decided on Switzerland as our ob- 
jective and awaited only the opportunity to make 
a break. 

105 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

There were few if any preparations to make. We 
were not yet receiving parcels and our allowance of 
food was so scanty that it was impossible to lay 
any by. We had a crude map of our own drawing. 
And that was our all. 

In the interval we discussed ways and means of 
later travel and endeavoured to prepare our minds 
for all contingencies, even capture. We talked the 
matter over with Simmons and Brumley at every 
opportunity, so as to benefit also by their plans. 
This required caution so we were careful at all times 
that we should not be seen together; rather that we 
should even appear unfriendly. We developed the 
cunning of the oppressed. Once we even staged a 
wordy quarrel over some petty thing for the benefit 
of our guards and others of the prisoners whom we 
distrusted. At other times we foregathered in dim 
corners of our huts as though by chance. We con- 
versed covertly from the comers of our mouths and 
without any movement of the lips, as convicts do. 
This avoidance of one another was made the easier 
because of the arrangement of the personnel of each 
hut. The various nationalities were pretty well split 
up in companies, presumably to prevent illicit co- 

io6 



THE ESCAPE 



operation and each company was separated from 
the others by the wire. 

Our chance came at last. We were "warned" 
for a working party on a railroad grade near by. 
As compliance would enable us to get on the other 
side of the wire, we made no protest. This work 
was a part of the authorities' scheme of farming 
prisoners out to private individuals and corporations 
who required labour. In this case it was a railroad 
contractor. As a rule the contractors fed us better 
than the authorities, if for no other reason than to 
keep our working strength up. 

We were marched out of the laager without any 
breakfast each morning to the work and there re- 
ceived a little sausage and a bit of bread for break- 
fast. At noon we received soup of a better quality 
than the camp stuff. It was cooked by a Russian 
Pole, a civilian ; one of many who was living out in 
the town on parole. These had to report regularly 
to the authorities and had to remain in the local 
area. 

We were on the job a week before things seemed 
favourable. We had only what we stood in, except- 
ing the rough map, which was drawn from hearsay 

107 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

and our scanty knowledge of the country. We 
planned to travel at night, lay our course by the 
stars and perhaps walk to Switzerland in six weeks. 

We worked all morning, grading on the railroad 
embankment. At noon we knocked off for soup and 
a rest. We were on the edge of a large wood. Some 
of the men flung themselves on the bank; others 
went to see if the soup was ready. A few went into 
the wood. The solitary guard was elsewhere. We 
said good-bye to the few who knew of our plans. 
They bade us God-speed and then we, too, faded 
into the recesses of the wood. 

We had no sooner set foot in it than I noticed a 
curious change come over my companion. He said 
that it was a bad time, a bad place, found fault 
with everything and said that we should not go 
that day. However, we continued, half-heartedly 
on his part, to shove our way on into the wood. Oc- 
casionally he glanced fearfully over his shoulder 
and voiced querulous protests. I did not answer him. 
A little further on and he stopped. A dog was 
barking. 

"There's too many dogs about, Edwards. And 
io8 



THE ESCAPE 



just look at all those houses." He pointed to where 
a village showed through the trees. 

"Sure thing, there'll be houses thick like that all 
the way. It's our job to keep clear of them." 

"Yes, but look at the people. There's bound to 
be lots of them where there's so many houses." 

"Of course there are," I replied: "Germany's 
full of houses and people. That's no news. Come 
on." 

"Oh I They'll see us sure, Edwards — and tele- 
graph ahead all over the country. We haven't got 
any more show than a rabbit." 

With that I lost patience and gave him a piece of 
my mind. We stood there, arguing it back and 
forth. 

It was no use: He fell prey to his own fears; 
saw certain capture and a dreadful punishment. 
He conjured up all the dangers that an active im- 
agination could envisage: Every bush was a Ger- 
man and every sound the occasion of a fresh alarm. 
He was like to ruin my own nerves with his petty 
panics. 

It was in vain that I pleaded with him: He 
could not face the dangers that he saw ahead. The 

109 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

laager seemed to him, by comparison, a haven of 
refuge. When all else failed, I appealed to his pride. 
He had none. I warned him that we should meet 
with nothing but scorn from our comrades, except- 
ing laughter, which was worse. I begged and 
pleaded with him to go on with me. No use. All 
his courage was foam and had settled back into 
dregs. 

And so we returned. I was heart-broken. But 
there was no use in my going on alone. To travel 
by night we must sleep in the day time and that re- 
quired that some one should always be on watch to 
avoid the chance travellers of the day — which was 
obviously impossible for any one who travelled alone. 

We had been gone only an hour and a half and 
the guard was just beginning to look around for us. 
Otherwise we had not been missed nor seen, for the 
wood was a large one and we had not yet gotten out 
of its confines. The guard was too relieved to find 
us, when we stepped out of the wood and picked up 
our shovels, to do more than betray a purely per- 
sonal annoyance. He asked where we had been and 
why we had remained for so long a time. We gave 
the obvious excuse. He was too well pleased at 

no 



THE ESCAPE 



his own narrow escape from responsibility to be 
critical, so that the affair ended in so far as he or 
his kind were concerned. Which made what fol- 
lowed the harder to bear. 

For it was not so with our own comrades. My 
prognostication had been a correct one. A few of 
them had known that we were going; some had bade 
us good-bye. They rested on their picks now and 
stared at us, lifting their eyebrows, with a knowing 
smile for one another and a half-sneer for us. My 
companion had already plumbed the depths of fear 
and so was now lost to all shame. Myself, I found 
it very hard. Soldiers have, outwardly at least, but 
little tenderness, except perhaps in bad times, and 
they showed none now. Nor mercy. The situation 
would have been ridiculous had it not been so ut- 
terly tragic — to have failed without trying! Ed- 
wards's escape became camp offal. We became the 
butt and the byword of the camp, so that I honestly 
regretted not having pushed on alone. I felt sure 
that the almost certain capture and more certain 
punishment would have been more bearable than 
this. There was nothing that I could say in my own 
defense except at the other man's expense — which 

III 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

would have been in questionable taste and would 
have been deemed the resort of a weakling. So I 
kept my counsel and brooded. The ignorance of 
the guards made the tragedy comic. It was very 
humiliating. I gritted my teeth and swore that I 
at any rate should go again in spite of their in- 
credulous jeers. But it was all terribly discourag- 
ing and made me most despondent. 

And that finished that trip to Switzerland. 

A few days later Simmons and Brumley disap- 
peared. There was no commotion. One day they 
were with us and the next — they were not. The 
guards said nothing and we feared to ask. I longed 
ardently to be with them. 

In a few days the camp was thrown into a mild 
turmoil. The poor fellows were escorted in under a 
heavy guard. And very dejected they looked too — 
in rags, very wet and evidently short of food, sleep 
and a shave. Nevertheless, I envied them. 

They disappeared for a long time. We were told 
they got two weeks' cells and six weeks of sitting on 
the stools in strafe barracks. I remembered the 
Yorkshiremen and my envy was tempered. 

I spent most of my time casting about for the 

112 



THE ESCAPE 



means for a real escape. Quite aside from my natu- 
ral desire for freedom I felt that my good name as a 
soldier was at stake. However, I waited for an op- 
portunity to converse with Simmons and Brumley 
before doing anything as I felt that their experi- 
ence might contain some useful hints for me. 

They appeared at the end of two months, quite 
undismayed. They told me of what had happened 
to them and Simmons approached me on the subject 
of making another try of it with them. I readily 
consented. They were now convinced that three or 
four could make the attempt with a better chance 
of success than two men. I would have agreed to 
go an army I All I wanted was an opportunity to 
prove my mettle and retrieve my lost reputation. 

They told me their story. It seems that they had 
been sent out as a working party to a near by farm. 
They were locked in the room as usual at nine o'clock 
that night after the day's work and then waited until 
they had heard the sentry pass by a couple of times 
on his rounds. The window was covered with 
barbed wire which they had no difficulty in remov- 
ing. By morning they were well on the way to 
Switzerland. They figured that they, too, could 

113 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

do it in six weeks' of walking by night, laying their 
course by the stars. They had no money and were 
still in khaki. 

They were four days' out and lying close in a 
small clump of bushes adjoining a field in which 
women were digging potatoes when a small boy 
stumbled on them. They knew they had been seen 
the day before and chose this exposed spot rather 
than the near-by wood, thinking that it was there 
the hue and cry would run. But he was a crafty lit- 
tle brat and pretended that he had not seen them. 
They were not certain whether he had or not and 
hesitated to give their position away by running 
for it. 

The boy walked until he neared the women, when 
he broke into a run and soon all gathered in a little 
knot, looking and pointing toward the fugitives. 
Some of the women broke away and evidently told 
some Bavarian soldiers who had been searching. 
The latter had already been firing into the woods to 
flush them out so that if the boy had not seen them 
the soldiers would in all likelihood have passed on, 
after searching the main wood. 

It was just four o'clock with darkness still four 
114 



THE ESCAPE 



hours off. Simmons and Bnimley were unarmed. 
There was no use in running for it. So they sur- 
rendered with what grace they could. There was 
the usual verdamning^ growling and prodding but 
no really bad treatment. For this they were sen- 
tenced to two weeks cells and six weeks of strafe 
barracks. 

They had been much bothered by the lack of a 
compass on their trip; so when they finished their 
strafing and were once more allowed the privileges 
of the mail, Simmons took a chance and wrote on the 
inside of an envelope addressed to his brother in 
Canada: "Send a compass." He was not called up 
so we hoped that it had gone through. 



"5 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Traitor at Vehnmoor 

The Swamp at Cellelaager — Seven Hundred Men and Two 
Small Stoves — Taking the Stripes Down — The Recre- 
ant Sergeant Major — "Go Ahead an' Shoot — !" 

GiESSEN is in Hesse. Shortly after this we 
were all sent to Cellelaager in Hanover. This was 
the head camp of a series reserved for the punish- 
ment or the working of prisoners. Each unit re- 
tained the name of Cellelaager and received in ad- 
dition a number, as Cellelaager i, Cellelaager 2 and 
so on. There were grounds here providing a lot 
for football, and a theatre run by the prisoners, for 
which there was an entrance fee, and other like 
amusements. These, however, were only for those 
prisoners who were on good behaviour and who 
were employed there. As such they were denied such 
desperadoes as ourselves. 

We remained there for two weeks and were then 
sent to the punishment camp known as Vehnmoor 

ii6 



THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR 

or Cellelaager 6. This was a good day's ride away 
and also in Hanover, fifteen kilometres from the big 
military town of Oldenburg. Here we were turned 
out to work on the moors with four hundred Rus- 
sians, one hundred French and Belgians and two 
hundred British and Canadians. We were housed 
in one large hut built on a swamp and were con- 
tinually wet. There were only two small stoves 
for the seven hundred men and we had only a few 
two pound syrup tins in which to cook. A poor 
quality of peat was our only fuel. As only five 
men could crowd round a stove at a time, one's 
chances were rather slim in the dense mob, every 
man-jack of whom was waiting to slip into the first 
vacant place that offered. 

We slept in a row along the wall, with our heads 
to it. Overhead a broad shelf supported a similar 
row of men. Above them were the windows. At 
our feet and in the centre of the room, there was a 
two foot passage way and then another row of men, 
with two shelves housing two more layers of sleep- 
ers above them. Then another two foot passage- 
way, the row of men on the floor against the other 
wall and the usual shelf full above them. The ver- 

117 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

min were bad and presented a problem until we ar- 
ranged with the Russians to take one end to them- 
selves, the French and Belgians the middle and we 
the other end. By this means we British were able 
to institute precautionary measures amongst our- 
selves so that after feasting on the Russians and 
finishing up upon the French, our annoying friends 
usually turned about and went home again. 

The swamp water was filthy, full of peat and 
only to be drunk in minute quantities at the bidding 
of an intolerable thirst. There was no other water 
to be had and we simply could not drink this. The 
Russians did, which meant another fatigue party to 
bury them. The only doctor was an old German, 
called so by courtesy; but he knew nothing of medi- 
cine. As a corporal, I was held responsible for 
twenty men. That implied mostly keeping track 
of the sick and I have seen nineteen of my twenty 
thus. But that made no difference. It was "Raus I" 
and out they came, sick or well. 

Every morning an officer stood at the gate as we 
marched out to the moor, to take "Eyes right" and 
a salute, for no useful purpose that we could see ex- 
cept to belittle a British soldier's pride. As cor- 

ii8 



THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR 

poral I was supposed to give that command to my 
squad but rather than do so I took my stripes down, 
although that ended my immunity as a "non-com" 
from the labour of cutting peat. Others, I am sorry 
to say, were glad to put the stripes up and at times 
went beyond the necessities of the situation in en- 
forcing their rule on their comrades. It was one of 
these who was found to be trading in and selling his 
packages to his less fortunate comrades and who was 
ostracized in consequence. 

There were here at Vehnmoor, as there had been 
at Giessen, a certain few of our own men who traded 
on the misfortunes of their own comrades. This man 
was the worst of them all. He was a sergeant-ma- 
jor in a certain famous regiment of the line in the 
British Army. He was a fair sample of that worst 
type which the army system so often delegates au- 
thority to — and complains because that authority 
does not meet with the respect it should on the part 
of its victims. 

He excelled in all the arts of the sycophant : The 
pleasure of the guards was his delight, their dis- 
pleasure, his poignant grief. He assumed the au- 
thority of his rank with us, he reported the slight- 

119 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

est of misdemeanours amongst us to the guards and 
was instrumental in having many punished. These 
and other things gave him and others of his kidney 
the run of the main grounds so that they could 
stretch their legs and have some variety in their 
lives. Such liberty was there for any man who 
would do as they did. 

None of us were safe from these traitors. The 
sergeant major in particular, spied on us, reporting 
all criticisms of our guards and other things Ger- 
man. We raged. He had for his virtue a small 
room to himself in a corner of the hut. When par- 
cels came from England, addressed to the senior non- 
commissioned officer of his regiment, for him to dis- 
tribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went 
out with their coats bulging suspiciously. We were 
then called to receive ours whilst he stood over, bully- 
ing us with all the abusive "chatter" which the 
British service so well teaches. And afterward we 
watched covertly, with all the cunning of the op- 
pressed, and saw him receive other stealthy favours 
from the guards that were not within his arrange- 
ment with the Commandant. 

So one of his own men who had a certain legal 
1 20 



THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR 

learning took down all these facts as I have recited 
them and calling us together, bade us sign our names 
in evidence of so foul a treachery. Which we gladly 
did. And it was and is the prayer of all that when 
the gates of the prison camps roll back this docu- 
ment will get to the War Office and there receive the 
attention it deserves. 

My comrades in misfortune here told me of an- 
other such a man who had gone away just before my 
arrival at this camp. He, too, was a sergeant-ma- 
jor of a line regiment in the old army. I had known 
him in the old days in India. In his own regiment 
he was never known by his own name, but instead 
by this one: "The dirty bad man." No one ever 
called him anything else when referring to him. 
That was his former record and this is what he did 
here to keep the memory of it green. 

He was instrumental in having fixed on us one 
of the most terrible of army punishments. It ap- 
pears that some time before one of our men had 
broken some petty rule of discipline and the Ger- 
mans had asked the sergeant-major what the punish- 
ment was in our army for such a "crime," as all of- 
fences are termed in the army. 

121 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

"Number One Field Punishment or Crucifix- 
ion," had been his lying reply. That meant being 
spread-eagled on the wheel of a gun limber, tied 
to the spokes at wrist and ankle, with the toes off 
the ground and the entire weight of the body on 
the outraged nerves and muscles of those members. 

Lacking a gun limber, the Germans used a post 
with a cross-bar for this man's case. After that, this 
was a recognized mode of punishment for many 
petty offences in this camp. 

It is true that this form of punishment is a part 
of the so-called discipline of our army. But it was 
not meted out for offences of the nature of this man's 
and if it had been, the obvious thing for the sergeant- 
major to have done would have been to have lied 
like a man; instead of which he piled horror on 
horror for his own countrymen. I have the facts 
and names of these cases. 

There will be many strange tales to come from 
these camps in the fulness of time. No doubt some 
will go against us, but the truth must be told at all 
costs, else the evil goes on and on. 

We were sent out one day to dig potato trenches 
on the moors in a terrible rain. We stuck our spades 

122 



THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR 

in the ground and refused. The guards had French 
rifles of the vintage of 1870 which carried cartridges 
with bullets that were really slugs of lead. They 
began to load. A little unteroffizier tugged ex- 
citedly at his holster for the revolver. 

A big Canadian stepped up: "Wait a minute, 
mate." He reached down to the little man's waist 
and drew the gun. 

He offered it to its owner, butt forward, "Now 
go ahead and shoot, and we'll chop your damned 
heads off." 

The rest of us confirmed our leader's statement by 
gathering around threateningly and making gruesome 
and suggestive motions with our spades. There were 
two hundred of us and only forty guards. We 
meant business and they knew it. They took us 
back to the laager and locked us up. 

The following night, that of January 22nd, our 
guards were reinforced by thirty more. 



123 



CHAPTER XIV 

Away Again 

Why the Prisoners Walked — Cold Feet Again — The Man 
Who Turned and Fled — Brumley's Precious Legs — The 
Wait in the Wood — The Cunning of the Hunted — Bad 
Days in the Swamps — Within Four Miles of Freedom — 
The Kaiser's Birthday — Another Trip to Holland. 

Simmons and Brumley, together with my com- 
panion of the first escape, had determined to make 
a break for it with me. And although we were not 
quite ready at this time the addition to the guards 
forced our decision. We had a scanty supply of 
biscuits saved up and I had wheedled a file from a 
friendly Russian ; Simmons got a bit of a map from 
a Frenchman; and we secured a watch from a Bel- 
gian. With this international outfit we were ready, 
except that we lacked a sufficient store of food. 
However, there was no help for that. 

The laager was a twelve-foot-high barbed wire 
124 



AWAY AGAIN 



enclosure, eighty feet wide by three hundred long, 
with the hut occupying the greater part of the 
central space. There was sufficient room below 
the bottom wire to permit the trained camp dogs 
to get in and out at us. 

They patrolled the four-foot lane that enclosed 
the laager and wandered up and down it, their 
tongues out, always on the alert. They were as 
well confined as we were, since the outer wall of 
wire was built down close to the ground. They 
were very savage and seemed instinctively to regard 
us as enemies; as all good German dogs should. 

The sworn evidence of prisoners exchanged since 
my escape mentions that in one case an imbecile Bel- 
gian was daily led out to the fields, wrapped up in 
several layers of clothes and then set upon by the 
dogs under the guidance of their guards; this was 
for the better instruction of the dogs. 

At each corner of the laager there hung an arc 
light. The sphere of light from those at the end did 
not quite meet and so left a small shadow in the 
center of the end fence. 

As soon as night came we arranged that six other 
men should walk to and fro from the end of the 

125 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

hut to the shadow at the wire, as though for exer- 
cise. Others, ourselves included, clustered round the 
end of the hut. I watched my chance, and when 
the moment seemed favorable, fell into step beside 
the promenaders. 

We swung boldly out, intent apparently, on noth- 
ing. Our arrival at the inner wire synchronized 
with that of one of the guards beyond the outer wire. 
We turned about without appearing to have seen 
him. Still walking briskly, we reached the hut and 
turned again. The guard's back was now turned; 
he was walking away. At his present rate of travel 
he should be twenty yards off when we next reached 
the wire. We dared not chance suspicion by slacken- 
ing our gait. My heart stopped. 

As we reached the shadow I fell prone and lay mo- 
tionless. No dogs were in sight. Niagara pounded 
in at my ears but no hostile sound indicated that 
I had been observed. I dragged myself carefully 
through and under the clearance left for the dogs, 
until my cap brushed the lower wires of the main 
and outer fence. My feet still projected beyond the 
inner wire into the main enclosure so that on their 

126 









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RECORD OF SECOND ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE. 



AWAY AGAIN 



next trip one of my comrades inadvertently touched 
my foot, startling me. 

I held the strand in my left hand and fell to filing 
with my right so that at the snap there should be no 
noisy rebound of the spring-like wire. A post was 
at my right, and, the wire having been nailed to it, 
I was safe from this danger on that side. 

The sound of the tramp of those faithful feet re- 
ceded but the sound of them came strongly back to 
me like a message of hope. 

By the time they were back once more I had cut 
through three strands and was crawling cautiously 
toward my objective, a pile of peat two hundred 
yards distant, which seemed to offer cover as a 
breathing spot and starting point. On the signal 
from the promenaders that I was through the wire, 
Simmons followed, and after him, Brumley. The 
other man lived up to the example he had previously 
set himself. He drew back in alarm and refused 
to make the attempt. 

With twenty-five guards all about and some only 
thirty feet away, the very impudence of the plan of- 
fered our only hope of success. I still lacked fifty 
yards of the peat heap when I heard three shots, next 

127 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

the dogs, and then the general outcry which followed 
the detection of Brumley. 

I rose to my feet and ran. We had already 
mapped out our course in advance by daylight, for 
just such a contingency; so I struck boldly out. I 
was still in the swamp to my knees, and under those 
conditions even the short start we had might prove 
sufficient, since our pursuers would also bog down. 
The swamp was intersected by a series of small 
ditches and scattered bushes, which added to the 
difficulty of the passage. I heard Brumley flounder- 
ing and swearing behind and went back to pull him 
out of a bottomless ditch. Simmons joined us while 
I was still struggling with him. In another 
hour Brumley's legs played out. We could still 
make out the lights of the laager. It was vitally 
necessary to push on; so we encouraged him as best 
we could and managed, somehow, to reach the edge 
of the swamp by daylight. We put ourselves on the 
meagre rations our store allowed, one biscuit for 
breakfast and another for supper, with a bit of choco- 
late on the side. We had apparently outdistanced 
the pursuit. We prayed that our friends might not 
be too severely punished for their part in our escape, 

128 



AWAY AGAIN 



We lay in the heather all day, soaked to the skin 
with the brackish water of the swamp, the odor of 
which still hung to our clothes. It was January and 
very cold and sleep was impossible under such con- 
ditions. We nibbled our tiny rations and struck 
out as soon as darkness came. Our plan was to go 
straight across country, but Brumley could not navi- 
gate the rough going of the fields; although on the 
level roads he made out fairly well. So we chanced 
it on the latter. 

Brumley was struggling along manfully but his 
legs caused him great suffering. At about two 
o'clock in the morning we lay to in the shadow of a 
clump of trees at the roadside, thinking to ease him 
a bit. He flung himself down. Simmons massaged 
Brumley's legs whilst I watched. 

We had just said: "Come on," and they were ris- 
ing to their feet, when another figure stepped off the 
road and in amongst our trees. It was so dark where 
we stood that he probably would not have seen us 
had not Brumley at that very moment been rising 
to his feet. He appeared as much surprised as we 
were and started back as though in amazement. 
And then without more ado, he turned and fled the 

129 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

way we had come whilst we made what haste we 
could in the opposite direction, all equally alarmed. 

Who he was or what he wanted, we could only 
surmise. If he was not also an escaped prisoner then 
he must have been badly wanted by the authorities 
to have been travelling in such a fashion at such 
an hour; and above all, to have been so alarmed by 
this chance meeting with fugitives. In any event we 
wished him luck and promptly forgot all about him. 

Later on in the night our road led us directly into 
a village. We hesitated as to what we should do. 
Brumley was for pushing through. The alternative 
was to go round and through the fields, lose valuable 
time and play out Brumley's precious legs. It was 
past midnight, so we decided on the village route, 
and started on. 

We passed through without being molested, but 
just as we were leaving the other side some civilians 
saw us and shouted "Halt!" and other words mean- 
ing "to shoot." We paid no attention. Espying a 
wood in the distance, we struck out for it. Brum- 
ley was in misery and threw up the sponge. We 
stopped to argue with him, at the same time drag- 
ging him along, and while doing so saw two more 

130 



AWAY AGAIN 



civilians rushing up and shouting as they came. 
Lights began to spring up all over the village. 
Brumley stopped dead and refused to go farther. 
We had previously agreed that if anything should 
happen to any one of us the others were to push on, 
every man for himself. No good could be gained by 
fighting when we were so hopelessly outnumbered, 
so Simmons and I rushed into the wood, swung 
around and out again and lay down on the edge of it, 
in time to see them take Brumley and come sweeping 
by us in hot pursuit. The main body stopped only 
a moment to inspect their capture, gathering around 
poor Brumley so that we could not at first see what 
had happened to him. Then several of them started 
back toward the village, with him limping along at 
their side. Ten yards away a knot of them gathered 
and assisted another up into a tree to watch for us. 
One handed him a rifle and the pursuit went on into 
the wood. Occasionally we heard the sentinel stir- 
ring. 

We scarcely breathed. It seemed impossible that 
he could not hear the pounding of our hearts. We 
grew quite stiff in our cramped positions, but feared 
to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an 

131 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

hour before we dared to worm our way cautiously 
in the other direction. The snap of a twig was like 
that of a rifle on the stillness of the night. 

Once we stopped, thinking that certainly he had 
heard us. It was only the beat of a night bird's 
wings. We dared take only an inch at a time, slid- 
ing forward on our bellies and then — waiting. 

We met another sentry farther up, but worked 
aroimd him in safety and with more of ease, as we 
were by this time on our feet. 

Arriving at the end of the small wood, we walked 
boldly across the intervening fields to another one, 
large enough to afford cover for an army corps, and 
there felt comparatively safe. 

We were, however, very wet and cold and alto- 
gether miserable, buoyed up only by the liberty 
ahead. As it was only two o'clock, we pushed on 
for several hours before stopping to lie by for the 
day. 

For days we carried on thus without discovery. 
Each night was a repetition of the preceding one, an 
interminable fighting of our way through dark for- 
ests, into and out of sloppy ditches, over fields and 

132 



AWAY AGAIN 



through thorny hedges, dodging the lights of vil- 
lages. 

We went solely by the stars, which Simmons un- 
derstood after a fashion, and, aided by our map, we 
held fairly well to our general direction. We had 
no other sources of information than our own good 
sense. We watched the sky ahead at night for the 
glow which might indicate to us the size of the com- 
munity ahead; and aided by a close observation of 
railroads, telegraph wires and the quality of the 
wagon roads and the quantity of travel on them, 
were able to form fairly accurate estimates of where 
we were and which places to avoid. Except on un- 
frequented byways we travelled by the fields, hug- 
ging the road from a distance. This made travel 
arduous but safer. 

At that, we were sometimes spoken to in neigh- 
borly greeting. We grunted indifferently in reply, 
as an unsociable man might. When, as sometimes 
happened, people rose up in front of us from gate- 
ways or hidden roads, it was very disconcerting. 
On such occasions only the darkness saved us, for 
we took no chances, wherever there were lights. 

It was really harder in the day time; when, try as 
133 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

we might, we could not count on avoiding for our 
hiding place the scene of some labourer's toil or per- 
haps the covert of some child's play. We slept by 
turns with one always on guard. It was difficult in- 
deed for the guard not to neglect his duty, so ut- 
terly weary were we. The lying position we needs 
must retain all day long aided that tendency, and 
yet we were always so wet and cold that real sleep 
was difficult to secure. 

In this district the swamps were numerous and 
difficult to cross. The small ditches and canals that 
drained them or the almost equally swampy fields 
added to our grief. The feet slipped back at each 
muddy step: We fell into ditches: Dogs barked: 
And we almost wept. 

Once a dog helped us by his barking. It was night 
and we were crossing a very bad swamp, an old 
peat bog which was full of the ditches and holes that 
the peat had been taken from. These were full of 
black water which merged so naturally into the pre- 
vailing darkness that we repeatedly fell into them. 
We floundered out of one only to fall into another, 
uncertain where we were going and lost to all sense 
of direction. There was no vestige of track or road. 

134 



AWAY AGAIN 



It was then that the dog barked. We stopped to 
listen, conversing in low tones. Certainly, we 
thought, the dog must be near a house and that 
meant dry land and a footing. So we advanced in 
the direction of the sound, stopping to listen to each 
fresh outburst so as to make certain that we should 
not approach too closely. Apparently he had smelt 
us on the wind. 

Before we reached the dog we felt the solid ground 
under foot and were off once more at a tangent from 
the sound of his barking. 

The swamps were a great trouble to us, as were 
also some of the fields, so cut up by ditches and 
hedges were they, and yet, in order to avoid the roads 
and the wires, we frequently had to lay a circuitous 
route to avoid these obstacles or else chance the road, 
which we would not do. Often, when we could see 
our course lying straight ahead on the road, we put 
about and tacked off and away from it because a 
parallel course was impossible on account of the 
swampy nature of the ground. With these bad 
places passed we could perhaps pull back to our true 
course again, but only after double the travel that 
should have been necessary. 

135 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

However, we did not mind that so much. Nor did 
we greatly mind the short rations we were on. The 
other privations were too severe for us to notice these 
minor ones. 

The worst was the continual state of wetness and 
the resultant coldness of our bodies. It was not so 
bad at night when we were walking and so kept our 
blood circulating, but by day it was very bad. We 
used to pray for night and the end of our enforced 
rest. We were never dry or warm but were always 
very cold and miserable. The sun, on those rare 
occasions when it came forth, did not appear until 
ten or eleven in the morning. By mid-afternoon 
it was again a thing of the past. At best it was 
very weak and we had to hide in the bushes where 
it could not reach us. All we could do was to take off 
one garment at a time and thrust it cautiously out 
near the edge of our hiding-place to some spot on 
which the sun shone. Under these conditions we 
grew steadily weaker on our allowance of two bis- 
cuits a day ; for the time of year precluded the possi- 
bility of there being any crops for us to fall back 
upon for food, and it was too risky a proceeding to 
attempt to steal from the householders. 

136 




GERMAN PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH GOOD NATURED ENGLISH 
CROWDS AT SOUTHAMPTON. 




HIGH EXPLOSIVES BURSTING OVER GERMAN TRENCHES. BRITISH 
DEAD IN FOREGROUND. 



AWAY AGAIN 



On the eighth day we reached the River Ems. 
We had no difficulty in recognising it, as it was the 
only large one on our map that lay on the route we 
had chosen, and we had passed nothing even faintly 
resembling it, with the exception of some large ca- 
nals, which were easily recognizable as such and 
which we had swum. We made out trees which ap- 
peared to be on the other shore. 

We regretfully decided that it was too late to 
attempt the crossing that night. The daylight 
proved the line of trees to be merely the tops of a 
flooded woodland. The shore was a good quarter 
of a mile away. It was January ; the water was cold 
and full of floating ice, and very swift. Fording was 
out of the question. For two days and nights we 
wandered up and down the bank, vainly seeking a 
boat or raft with which to make the crossing. We 
finally discovered a large bridge, which was sub- 
merged except for its flood-time arches. There was 
no sign of life and it looked safe, so we proceeded to 
cross. We discovered, however, that we had not 
reached the bridge proper, but were merely on the 
approach cO it. We dropped off onto the main steel 
portion. The wind beat the cold rain against us so 

137 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

that we could neither see nor hear. However, we 
went on and were nearly across when suddenly a 
light flashed on us and we heard a startled "Halt!" 

We could barely make out the mass of buildings 
that indicated the line of the shore. It seemed too 
bad to throw up the sponge so easily, 

I said under my breath to Simmons : "We'll push 
right on," and loudly: "Hollander!" thinking we 
might perhaps get far enough away to make a run 
for it. But there was no show: It was too far to 
the shore. 

There was a shouted command and the clatter of 
rifle-bolts striking home. It was no use. We 
stopped and shouted that we would not run, and 
then waited while they advanced toward us. 

The elderly Landsturmers guarding the bridge 
gathered us in and took us over to their guardroom 
at the hotel. We judged the incident to be an epoch 
in the monotony of their soldierly duties. They were 
very good to us. Two of them moved away from 
the fire to make room for our wet misery and they 
gave us a pot of boiling water, two bivouac cocoa 
tablets and a loaf of black bread. The news spread, 
and civilians dropped in to stare at and question us. 

138 



AWAY AGAIN 



In the morning the entire population came to see the 
Engldnder prisoners. We learned that we were 
only four miles from Holland, and cursed aloud. 
The town was Lathen and when, the next morning, 
we discovered that it was gayly bedecked with flags 
and bunting we decided that we were indeed per- 
sonages of note if we could cause such a celebration. 
However, it was only the Kaiser's birthday. 

In the afternoon they took us by rail to Meppen 
and shoved us in the civilian jail, where we were 
allowed a daily ration of two ounces of black bread, 
one pint of gruel and three-quarters of a pint of cof- 
fee for two days, until, on January thirtieth, an es- 
cort came from Vehnmoor. They roped us together 
with a clothes-line, arm to arm, and marched us 
through the principal streets by a roundabout route 
to the station so that all might see. 

We were unwashed, unshaven and so altogether 
disreputable as to satisfy the most violent hatred — 
such for instance as we found here. It did not re- 
quire our pride to keep our hearts up or to keep us 
from feeling the humiliation of so cruel an ordeal. 
We simply did not experience the painful sensations 
that such a proceeding would ordinarily arouse in 

139 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

the breast of any man; just as after heavy shell-fire 
no man feels either fear or courage ; he is too dazed 
and stupid for either. Many spat at us and good 
old Englander Schwein came to us from every side. 
It seemed like meeting an old friend, after our few 
days away from it. The faces of these people were 
different from those we had left at camp but their 
hearts were the same. They lined the streets and 
jeered at us. But we were too tired and hungry 
to care. 

And that ended that trip to Holland. 



140 



CHAPTER XV 

Paying the Piper 

Sheer Starvation — Slipping It Over the Sentry — The Court 
Martial — Thirty Days Cells — No Place for a Gourmand 
— In Napoleon's Footsteps — Parniewinkel Camp — "Like 
Father, Like Son" — The Last Kind German — Running 
Amuck — The Torture of the Russians — The Continental 
Times— "K. of K. Is Gone !" 

Upon arrival at camp, we were put in cells for 
eleven days while awaiting our court-martial. 

During that period we suffered terribly from sheer 
starvation. The daily rations consisted of a poor 
soup and a small quantity of black bread. Hungry 
though I was, there was only one way by which I 
could eat it — hold my breath and swallow. I am 
aware that the Germans consider this food quite 
palatable but that may be because they are accus- 
tomed to it. It was to us the resort of starving 
men. The cells were quite dark — four-by-eight- 
foot wooden boxes. The confinement and short ra- 

141 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

tions on top of our arduous journey, during which 
we had had nothing but the two biscuits a day, 
caused us to grow weaker daily. 

Our friends, however, contrived occasionally to 
get portions of their food to us. They maintained 
a sentry of their own, whose duty it was to watch 
for and report our trips to the latrine. It was unsafe 
for us to ask for this permission more than once a 
day with the same guard. As the latter was fre- 
quently changed, however, we were enabled to work 
the scheme to the limit. 

At the worst, this let us out of our cells for a few 
minutes; and, if we were lucky, enabled us to get a 
handful of broken food. Seeing us come out, the 
prisoner on watch would stroll into the hut and pass 
the word. Shortly, another would come out to us 
and in passing frequently manage to slip us some- 
thing. On one long-to-be-remembered occasion, 
a man of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 
managed to "square" the guard, a pleasant-faced 
young German, in some manner we could never 
fathom, so that the latter actually brought to us two 
spoons and a wash basin full of boiled barley, which 

142 



PAYING THE PIPER 



we ate in the latrine. That was the most humane 
act experienced from German hands during my fif- 
teen months' sojourn in Germany. 

On the eleventh day we were marched out to what 
would be the Germans' orderly room. A Canadian 
who had picked up a smattering of German acted as 
interpreter. He did what he could for us, which 
was little enough. 

Asked why we had tried to escape, we feared to 
tell the truth, that we had been forced to it by ill- 
treatment; so merely stated that we were tired of 
Germany and wanted to go home. The presiding 
officer said: "Well, you fellows have been a lot 
of trouble to us. I've been told to tell you that if 
you give us any more; we'll ha\e a little shooting 
bee." We were sentenced to thirty days' dark cells. 
That was our court-martial. 

One lucky thing happened to us here : When they 
took our map away it fell in two, as a result of hav- 
ing been folded in our pockets. The officer crumpled 
one piece up, made a handful of it and tossed it 
away, at the same time shoving the other half at me, 
which I eagerly clutched. That piece showed the 
portion of Germany adjoining the Holland border. 

143 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Our thirty days' dark cells were spent in the mili- 
tary prison at Oldenburg. As before, they were 
four-by-eight feet in size, but with a high ceiling 
which gave me room to stand on my hands for ex- 
ercise. Each of us was confined alone. The walls 
and floor of the cells were of stone; the shutters, of 
steel which were always closed. There was no furni- 
ture other than the three boards which served as 
the mockery of a bed and which were chained up 
to the wall every morning. A small shelf which held 
the water pitcher was the only other furnishing. No 
ray of light was permitted to enter the place. The 
month was February but there were no blankets, and 
the place was unheated. The rations consisted of 
half a pound of black bread and a pitcher of water, 
which were thrust in to us every morning, so that 
except for the guard who unchained the boards at 
night we had no visitation in the twenty-four long, 
long hours. 

I cannot remember that I brooded much. Rather, 
I let my mind run out as a tired sleeper might, 
which was no doubt fortunate for me. My family 
were greatly in my thoughts. I wondered how my 
wife was making out and if she was receiving her 

144 



PAYING THE PIPER 



separation allowance all right, for I had heard of 
many cases where the reverse had happened; and 
whether the boys were well and going to school. I 
hoped that all was well with them and that they 
did not worry too much over my lot. 

As I was not permitted either to send or receive 
letters during the period of my trial and incarcera- 
tion, my wife was in fact in great distress of mind 
about me as she received no word for many weeks 
and imagined the worst. And when at last I could 
write it was only to say that although I had been 
well I had been unable to write, leaving her to draw 
her own conclusions. 

The cell door opened promptly at five o'clock 
every morning. We were allowed ten minutes in 
which to clean our cell, go to the lavatory and wash 
up, all under guard. These were the only occasions 
during which we had an opportunity of seeing one 
another or the other prisoners. These rites were all 
performed in silence, and communication of any de- 
scription was forbidden and so keenly watched for 
as to be impossible. However, Simmons and I got 
what small comfort we could out of seeing one an- 
other frequently, and by this time there had grown 

145 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

up between us such a mutual respect as to make us 
value this highly. The other prisoners included Ger- 
mans as well as our allies and there were some 
civilian German prisoners. The German soldier 
prisoners were mostly in for committing the various 
crimes of soldiering which in the British Army would 
have put them under the general head of defaulters. 
That classification, however, had been done away 
with in the German Army. The slightest infringe- 
ment of discipline was punished with cells. Non- 
commissioned officers received the same punishment 
as the men, without, however, losing their rank, as 
would have been the case in our army. 

Upon finishing the ten minutes allotted to us we 
were forced to re-enter our cells and stand against 
the wall, at the back, so that we could neither see nor 
communicate with one another until the guard got 
around a few minutes later and looked in to see that 
all was as it should be before slamming the door. 

There was no use in trying to stretch the ration 
out for two meals. I tried to and gave it up. And 
after that I ate the bread, filled up on water and 
sat down on the cold stone floor for another twenty- 
four hours of waiting. 

146 



PAYING THE PIPER 



My thoughts dwelt greatly on food. We were 
supposed to receive soup every fourth day, but we 
did not. The prisoners of other nationalities did, 
and in addition were exercised regularly. At least 
we could hear the rattle of their spoons against their 
bowls and the tramp of their feet. The slow starv- 
ing was, to my mind, the worst. And after that the 
loss of sleep. If one did drop off, the cold soon 
caused a miserable awakening. I tried not to think, 
and did all the gymnastic drill I knew, even to stand- 
ing on my hands in the darkness of the cell. I knew 
that if I gave up it would be all off, for I could daily 
feel myself getting wabbly as the confinement and 
starvation, added to my already enfeebled and 
starved condition when I entered, began to tell on 
me. It must be borne in mind that I had already 
served eleven days' solitary confinement on insuffi- 
cient food, after several days of jail on ditto, and 
eight days while escaping, during which I had been 
continually wet and without food, other than the 
two biscuits daily, before beginning to serve this sen- 
tence. Simmons, of course, was in the same plight. 

The last day, that of February 22nd, rolled 
around finally. We were taken from our cells at nine 

147 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

o'clock and marched out for an unknown destination 
which we knew only as a stronger punishment camp 
than the others we had been in. Ahead of us we 
saw poor Brumley ; but were unable to communicate 
with him, and I do not know whether he saw us or 
not. That was all we ever learned directly of his 
fate. His wife, in Toronto, has since informed me 
that he is still in Germany and has only lately been 
recaptured after another attempt at escape. 

At eleven that night we arrived at our destination. 
This was the strong punishment camp of Parnie- 
winkel, in Hanover, on the road over which Na- 
poleon had marched to his doom at Moscow. We 
wondered if we, too, were going to ours. 

We had had no food that day, nor did we get any 
that night, but were shoved into a hut full of Rus- 
sians, who did not know what to make of us. We 
were so long of hair and beard, so ragged, so emaci- 
ated and so altogether filthy that they must have 
thought us anything but British soldiers. 

Later we found that there were, in all, between 
four and five hundred Russian, eighty French and 
Belgian, and, including ourselves, eleven British 
prisoners, of whom Simmons and I were the only 

148 



PAYING THE PIPER 



Canadians, all shoved into two huts in the middle of 
the usual barbed-wire laager. 

As Giessen was the best camp, so this one was the 
worst of all those we were to know. It was not so 
wet as the swamp at Vehnmoor, but the drinking 
water was even worse than the brackish, peat-laden 
water there. The general sanitary arrangements were 
terrible and the food was worse than at Giessen, 
the camp in which that lack had been the worst fea- 
ture among many bad ones. And on top of it all 
the treatment was very bad, much worse than any 
we had previously known. 

A soup, made from a handful of pickled fish roe 
and a few potatoes, was a stock dish, and terrible to 
taste. On one night a week we received a raw herr- 
ing fresh from the brine barrel, which we were sup- 
posed to eat raw and uncleaned, but could not. On 
one day in seven there was a weak cabbage soup and 
of course, a small daily ration of potato-and-rye 
bread. Fortunately, our parcels were beginning to 
arrive by this time, so that, in fact, we fared better 
than at any of the better camps, in the matter of 
food. With the Russians it was different, and we 
used to give our soup to them in exchange for their 

149 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

share of boiling water, which we used in conjunction 
with the contents of our parcels and which they had 
no use for anyway, especially for washing purposes. 

It was difficult to get an opportunity to boil water 
for the making of tea or cocoa, even when parcels 
furnished the essentials, as there were so many men 
and so few stoves that it was a constant struggle to 
get near the latter. 

However, as we had refused to work, we did not 
require very much food. We used also to give our 
black bread to the Russians, for which they insisted 
on doing our washing, though it was little enough of 
that they did for themselves. They were very good 
and simple men. 

Ours was a good bunch of fellows and gave freely 
to one another and to the unfortunate Russians, who 
rarely received parcels. There was no selling or 
trading on misfortune here, as in some of the other 
camps we had been in. The Germans themselves 
were short of necessities here. They hated to come 
to the Engldnders to buy, so used to send the Rus- 
sians to beg for soap which they would not use in 
any event, and in this case simply sold to the guards. 
Discovering this, we shut down on indiscriminate 



PAYING THE PIPER 



giving. Soap or any other fatty substance was by 
that time very scarce in Germany, amongst the lower 
classes at least. I was the only "non-com" in our lot, 
and so put up the stripes I had taken down to avoid 
giving Augen Rechts at Vehnmoor. I used that au- 
thority now to persuade my fellow Britishers to give 
to the unfortunate Russians rather than to the 
French, who, like ourselves, were receiving parcels. 

A boy of five years or thereabouts used to come 
regularly to the wire, upon which he would climb 
and hang like some foul spider on its web. Grasp- 
ing it in both small hands and kicking vainly at it 
and us, he would scream: "Englander Schwein," and 
I know not what other names, spitting venom like 
a little wildcat. This was not the riffraff of the 
camp. The boy was the son of the camp Command- 
ant, and the apple of his father's eye and the thing 
was often done under that eye and amid the vicious 
applause of the young father and his terrible crew. 

The Commandant was a young chap, a lieutenant. 
What he lacked in years he made up in hate. He 
was known as an England hater. We were poison 
to him. The latrine, a mere shallow pit, was just 
outside the door of our hut and the Commandant 

151 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

saw to it that the latrine fatigue was always wished 
off on to the British. We were made to bail it out 
daily with buckets, which we then carried to the 
surrounding fields, on which we spread the contents 
while the Commandant and guards laughed. The 
unteroffizier in immediate charge of us, if left alone 
would not make us do this. He was the last kind 
German I remember, and I have mentioned all whom 
I can recall as having performed the slightest act of 
kindness to us, even of the most negative quality. 
He used to say that it was a pity to treat us so; 
that such a job was good enough for the Russians, 
who were no soldiers, anyhow, and who smelled bad 
and would not wash; but for us who were soldiers 
it was a great shame. 

The vermin were so bad here that we chanced 
further trouble by writing on post cards as though 
to friends in England, and complained. We knew 
that they would be intercepted and go to the Com- 
mandant. They did. We were marched to Celle- 
laager to go through the fumigating machine. We 
went into a large hut, stripped, tied our clothes in a 
bundle and shoved them into the large oven to bake 
for five hours while we sat round with nothing on 

1^2 



PAYING THE PIPER 



but a smile. In the interval we were made to run 
the clippers closely over our heads and bodies. There 
were sores on some of the Russians as big as a hand, 
eaten deep into by the vermin and the bones threat- 
ened to break through the skin of some as we sat 
about naked, shivering. Uncleanly at best and de- 
nied soap here, the lower class of them neglected all 
the rules of cleanliness. Their "non-coms" were the 
reverse, being almost without exception men of some 
education and general attainments. 

Upon our return to this camp we were told by a 
friendly Russian in the orderly room that the post 
cards were being held there as evidence against us. 
We begged him to give them to us. He did so, and 
we had barely finished destroying them when a Ger- 
man officer, accompanied by a file of men, entered 
and demanded them. We explained that they had 
been destroyed. He would not believe us. We 
pointed to the charred ashes. He searched our 
bodies, our beds and the scanty furnishing of the hut, 
naturally without avail. The Russian orderly was 
severely admonished and our fire was cut off as 
punishment. 

The treatment at this camp was uniformly bad. 
153 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

The next morning the Raus blew at four-thirty in- 
stead of five, as was customary. While we were 
still engaged in dressing the guards rushed in, some 
with fixed bayonets, others with them gripped short, 
as with daggers. The leader wore a button, the in- 
signia of non-commissioned rank. He gave a ber- 
serker roar of rage and charged furiously at an in- 
offensive Russian and stabbed the poor fellow in the 
neck; while his victim lay back in pleading terror, 
with outstretched arms. And then, still roaring, he 
slashed a Frenchman who was walking past, on the 
back of the head. Going down the hut, he espied 
Harckum, of the East Lancashire Regiment, tying 
his shoes. Without warning he plunged at him, and, 
striking, laid open the entire side of the man's face, 
splitting the ear so that it hung in two pieces. This 
was all quite in order because we were slow in 
dressing. 

The Russians, with the exception of a lucky few 
who received some from a Russian society in Eng- 
land, got no parcels, and suffered accordingly. They 
were more amenable to discipline than we were, and 
perhaps because of their hunger used to go out daily 
to work on the moors from daylight until dark. 

154 



PAYING THE PIPER 



They were a cheerful lot, considering everything, 
little given to thinking of their situation and not 
blessed by any great love of country nor perhaps the 
pleasantest recollections of it; and to that extent at 
least appeared to be comparatively satisfied, even 
under ill treatment. Ill fed as they were, they used 
frequently to fall out at their work from sheer ex- 
haustion, which the Germans said was only laziness 
and malingering and for which they would be re- 
turned to a point near the laager, where we were, for 
their punishment. By the Commandant's orders this 
consisted of forcing them to run the gauntlet of two 
lines of soldiers who jabbed them with bayonets if 
they fell into a walk — until the victims could run 
no more and dropped in their tracks. The Germans 
would then roll their eyelids back for signs of sham- 
ming, and if any such indications were shown, they 
were jabbed again — and usually were, anyhow — 
until their failure to respond proved that they were 
really unconscious. 

This happened with alarming frequency on a 
regular schedule, forenoon and afternoon, to all Rus- 
sians who refused to work. On one occasion we saw 
six or eight of them laid out unconscious at one time 

155 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

in this manner. We wished to do something for 
them, but were refused permission, and one man 
who was thought to be a ring leader was selected to 
make an example of; he was awarded seven days' 
cells. 

We had previously agreed that if we were 
awarded this punishment; we should refuse to run 
the gauntlet and should let them do their worst. 
There was no more heard of all this, but after that 
the Russians were punished on the other side of a 
belt of trees just outside the laager, where we could 
not see them, though their piteous cries could plainly 
be distinguished. 

Three of the Russians broke away from this camp, 
and finding themselves near the stores, crawled in 
the window and stole a half of a pig. They were 
recaptured, and, after doing thirty days' cells, were 
forced to work out the price of the pig at the rate of 
thirty pfennigs — or six cents — a day, which ordi- 
narily would have been credited to them for the 
buying of necessities. And pork came high in Ger- 
many. 

There was one kind of pill for all ailments. That 
however, may have been only stupidity. At least 

156 



PAYING THE PIPER 



the practice is not confined to the prison camps nor 
the army of Germany, as all British soldiers know. 
But even these were not for the British. 

On another occasion a party of Russians arrived 
from another camp twelve miles away. 

They said that some Englishmen there who had 
refused to work had been shot at until all were 
wounded in the legs. 

We continued to receive our old friend, the Con- 
tinental Ti7nes^ here, and through it first learned of 
the Skager-Rack or Jutland battle, in which, the 
paper claimed, over thirty major British ships had 
been sunk, in addition to a larger number of smaller 
ones. The Times said it was a great victory for the 
Germans. The last we doubted and the first we 
knew to be untrue, since some of the ships they 
claimed to have sunk had been destroyed previous 
to our capture, nine months before. It was in the 
Times, too, that we first heard of Kitchener's end. 
We could not believe it, and for a month laughed 
at the guard's insistence on the story, until one day 
a post card arrived from England, saying: "K. of K. 
is gone." That was a terrible blow to us, for to the 

1.57 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

British soldier; Kitchener was the tangible expres- 
sion of the might of his Empire. 

Some of our party of eleven British had been 
prisoners since Mons and they were in a very bad 
way. The poor food, the lack of the fundamental' 
necessities of the human frame, the terrible mo- 
notony of the continual barbed wire, the same faces 
round them, mostly unfriendly, all combined to have 
a most depressing effect, not only upon their bodies, 
but upon their minds. Many of them will never be 
of any use again. Compared to Ladysmith, when 
that place was besieged in the South African War, 
the latter, terrible though it was, was far and away 
better than this, even if we did live on horse meat at 
the last in Ladysmith. 

There was a certain amount of vice here, induced 
by the life. A kilted Highlander was accused of 
having fathered a child in a German family, where 
he had been employed. We did not learn the facts 
of the case; but such, at least, was camp gossip and 
it served to detract materially from the habitual 
despondency of our lot. 



158 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Third Escape 

Saving Up for the Day — A Special Brand — Watchful 
Waiting — Off Again — Why the Man in the Moon 
Laughed — A German Idyll — The Narrow Escapes. 

Simmons and I had been planning on another es- 
cape ever since our recapture. So we kept on our 
good behaviour, while we saved up food for Der 
Tag. We had hitherto refused to work, as had the 
remaining Britishers, but in order to keep ourselves 
fit; we finally volunteered to carry the noon ration 
of soup out to the Russians who worked on the moor. 
Our job consisted of carrying an immense can of 
soup, swung high on a pole from our shoulders, out 
to the workers, under guard of course. Starting at 
eleven each day and, by permission of the guard, oc- 
casionally resting, we were usually back by one 
o'clock. Each day we saved a portion of our food. 
We wanted twenty days' rations each, estimating 
that it would take us that long to walk to Holland. 

159 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

We specialised on concentrated foods from our par- 
cels — ^biscuits, tinned meats, and so on. We had 
our cache in a hole, dug under cover of night, under 
the flooring of the hut. It was unsafe to keep food 
on our bodies or near our beds, as the guards were in 
the habit of calling the Raus at all hours, and some- 
times, several times during the night. It might be 
at twelve, two or four, although it was never alike 
on any two nights in succession, except that they al- 
ways searched us. We could see no reason for this ; 
other than to break our rest and perhaps our spirits, 
as at Giessen Camp. Certainly, no one would carry 
any forbidden thing on his person, under such sur- 
veillance, and they well knew we could hide any- 
thing we wished in other places ; as we did. 

Each Saturday morning, Simmons and I paraded 
for paint. We stood, while a big Russian, with a 
brush and bucket, painted large red and green circles 
on our breasts, backs and knees. Thin stripes were 
also painted down the seams of our trousers and 
sleeves and around the stiff crowns of our caps. This 
was to mark us as dangerous characters. As such 
we received more of the unwelcome Raus attentions 

1 60 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



than the others and were the more wary in conse- 
quence. 

We were busy opening our mail on one of those 
rare occasions, when Simmons gave a startled excla- 
mation. I looked up and saw him gazing curiously 
at a small cheese which he turned slowly around in 
his hand. As I stepped to his side, a guard came in. 
He hastily shoved the cause of the strange behaviour 
into his pocket. When the guard had gone ; he passed 
me a letter to read. It was from his brother in 
Canada. "I received your letter all right and am 
sending you a special brand of cheese," I read — and 
understood. 

We waited on tiptoe until night, to open the 
cheese. It was one of the cream cheeses, so popular 
in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We 
gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. 
To our great joy, in the hollow heart of it there was 
tucked away the tiny compass Simonds had written 
for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape. 
With it were four American quarters. 

Not anticipating this good luck, we had exercised 
our ingenuity to construct a rude compass of our own 
out of a safety-razor blade and an eyelet from my 

i6i 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

boot. It was within fifteen to twenty degrees of the 
true north. In addition we had a safety lamp, which 
one of the guards had long been looking for under 
the impression that he had lost it. 

We now had our twenty days' rations saved up 
and so took turns sitting up at night, awaiting our 
chance. We spent two months in this watchful wait- 
ing, watching the wire and the sentries. But no 
opportunity offered. We took turn about, one man 
on watch all night long, every night. He could not 
seem to watch but must lie in his place, observing all 
movement in the hut and listening carefully for any 
indicative noises outside. Occasionally, he might 
step outside and ostentatiously walk about as though 
sleepless, and, if spoken to, say that he was not well. 

But always there were the shining eyes of the 
watching dogs, growling, if one came too near, and 
outside the stodgy sentries; and above all, much 
light. 

So we determined to volunteer for work, figuring 
that they were so short of men that they would not 
lightly refuse us. It so happened that ten men were 
asked for that Saturday to hoe turnips on a near-by 
farm. The pay was thirty pfennigs — or six cents — 

162 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



a day. We volunteered and were accepted without 
cavil. They thought our spirit gone and that we 
had accepted the inevitable. We reasoned that if 
we worked hard while we studied the lie of the land 
we might be asked for again, could go prepared, and 
make a break for it. 

And so it fell out. We worked hard all that day, 
at the same time impressing the topography of the 
country upon our minds. At the close of the day we 
were taken to the farm for our supper of potatoes 
and buttermilk and then marched off to the laager, 
four miles distant. On the following Monday we 
were ordered to go out to the same place. Unfor- 
tunately we could not take our store of food as its 
bulk would have meant our detection. In addition 
to the equipment already mentioned I carried two 
packages of tobacco, a shaving brush and a box of 
matches. Simmons had a terrible razor which would 
not shave, four boxes of matches and a small piece 
of soap. These were all our worldly possessions. It 
will be seen that, true to our British tradition, the 
shaving outfit constituted the most formidable part 
of our impedimenta. 

We worked all day. And so did the rain. We 
163 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

knocked off for supper at eight o'clock. The three 
guards escorted us to the farmhouse, but after lock- 
ing the front door, went into an adjoining room 
with the farmer for their own meal. The back door 
was forgotten. We were famished, so fell to on the 
supper of buttermilk and potatoes. I finished first 
and strolled lazily over to the door. Besides Sim- 
mons, there were seven Frenchmen and an English- 
man, all of whom were still at table and none of 
them aware of our plans, I carelessly opened the 
door and stood on the sill a moment. Still pour- 
ing, "Come here, Simmons, and see this. We're 
going to get wet before we get back." Simmons 
shoved his chair back and joined me. We both 
stepped outside and gently shut the door. 

Once more we were on our way ! We found our- 
selves at the edge of the village in which the farm- 
ers hereabouts had their homes. We worked our 
way carefully round the outskirts and made for a 
bit of a wood a mile and a half away. We were only 
half way to our objective when the village bells 
began to ring. Once more the hue and cry was on I 

When the deep baying of the dogs joined in we 
said "AtaboyI" cast aside all concealment and began 

164 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



to run for it. We reached the wood safely enough, 
but it turned out to be only a thin fringe of trees, 
offering no concealment whatever. We dashed 
through them. On the other side a village opened 
up. Back to the wedge of wood we went. A good- 
sized ditch with a foot or so of water in it ran along 
the edge of the wood. Its sides were covered with 
heather, which drooped far down into the water. 
We flung ourselves into it, after first shoving the tin 
box containing our precious matches into the heather 
above. Pitch darkness would not come until ten 
o'clock. During the intervening two hours we lay 
on our backs in the water with only the smallest pos- 
sible portion of our faces projecting. Once the guard 
jumped over the ditch less than four yards away. 
We suffered intensely, for, although it was late 
August, the water was very cold. 

When things had become quiet and daylight had 
passed we withdrew ourselves from the muck, and 
after rubbing our numbed bodies to restore the cir- 
culation, struck out across the country, intent on 
shoving as much distance as possible between our- 
selves and the camp before another day rolled round. 
We knew that the alarm would be out and the whole 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

country roused, with every man's hand against us. 
We were getting used to that. I, for one, had de- 
termined not to be taken alive this time. But I cer- 
tainly did not want to be put to the test. So we 
plowed our way through oat and rye fields and over 
and through ditches — ^many of them. Once we 
stripped our soggy clothes off to swim a river that 
faced us. In no place did the water come above our 
knees; but what it lacked in depth, it made up for 
in coldness. We saw none of the humour in that, 
so we cursed it and stumbled on, two very tired men. 
We pulled handfuls of oats and chewed dryly on 
them as we plunged up to our waists through the 
crops. We reckoned that we had made thirty miles 
by morning and apparently had outdistanced our 
pursuers. 

One night early in our pilgrimage, we espied some 
cows in a field. Simmons had been a farmer in 
Canada and so was our agricultural and stock au- 
thority here. He plunged through the hedge to see 
if he could not capture a hat full of milk whilst I 
stood guard outside. I stepped into the shadow of 
some trees, and occasionally I could hear a guarded " 

l66 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



"Soo — Cow!" footsteps — and then as like as not, a 
muffled curse. I smiled. 

Two figures came hurriedly down the road. I 
pressed back against the bole of the tree, holding 
my breath. It was fairly light on the road and to 
my amazement I saw two men who wore French uni- 
forms. Also they had heavy packs on their back. 
That last meant but one thing — food. 

I rose to my feet: "KameradI" 

One of them stopped short. The other pressed (Hi. 
He muttered something under his breath and the 
other broke into a trot to catch up. 

I edged along, trying desperately to be friendly. 
That made them the more timid. They would have 
none of me. No further word was exchanged just 
then except for a repetition of my "Kamerad." 

I whistled softly to Simmons. That alarmed 
them the more. They lengthened their stride. So 
did I mine. 

One said something I could not catch. They half 
halted and made a brave attempt to pose as Ger- 
mans, to judge by their guttural talk and brassy 
front. 

I could not explain, although I tried in the half 
167 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

light to show my friendliness, and Simmons, now a 
few rods away, did likewise. I endeavoured to ad- 
dress them in French — and could not. I tried 
German. That was worse and the final result — 
chaos. 

All I could think of was "Kamerad." I kept on 
like a parrot, foolishly repeating it. 

All this took but a moment and then they were 
gone and we after them. 

So there were they, walking hurriedly, fearful of 
us for Germans no doubt and casting uneasy glances 
back. I followed slowly, at a loss to know what 
to do, my eyes glued on the inviting squareness of 
their heavy packs. Simmons jogged behind, en- 
deavouring to catch up. The moon laughed at all 
four of us. 

"Come on," I said. "They're Frenchmen. We'll 
follow them. They have two packs on their backs ! 
Grub I And maybe we can bum them for a bit." 

Simmons needed no second invitation but set out 
as eagerly as I in cautious pursuit; so fearful were 
we of alarming our quarry. Our eyes were glued 
on their packs. 

Just then the road opened up into a broad ex;- 
i68 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



panse of heather. And there we lost them. We 
beat about in the heather for a long time, and called 
loudly, but without avail. They were no doubt ly- 
ing down, hiding. 

We found some potatoes in a field that night, 
dug them up with our bare hands and ate them raw. 
We were very sad when we thought of those packs. 

It was, I remember, on the day following that 
we saw some of the lighter side of German life. 
The woods thereabouts were cut up into big blocks, 
as city streets are. We were laying to in one of 
them, thankful for the thickness of our shelter 
when we heard laughing voices and then a gust of 
laughter as a flying group of girls and boys romped 
past. They played about for half an hour, causing 
us great alarm by their youthful fondness for sudden 
excursions into unlikely spots, after nothing in par- 
ticular. The oldest of the group, a sizable boy of 
seventeen or thereabouts and a pretty girl of near 
that age, hung back long after the younger children 
had passed on. We had little to fear from them. 
They were quite evidently engrossed in one another. 
He argued earnestly, while she listened with a half- 
smile. Once, he made as if to take her hand but she 

169 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

drew back and stiffened. He ignored the rebuff. 
A moment afterward he said something that pleased 
her so well that the last we saw of them his arm 
was about her waist as they went down the path 
together. 

Parniewinkel lay forty to fifty miles northeast of 
Bremen, which in turn was one hundred and fifty 
miles from the Holland border. We reckoned on 
having to walk double that in covering the stretch, 
and figured on twenty-one days for the trip. 

My diary for that day, August 22, 1916, reads: 
"Still raining. Soaked and cold. Breakfast, dinner 
and supper: turnips and oats." The night was a 
repetition of the preceding one, and made worse by 
the number of small swamps we had to struggle 
through. The next day's diary reads : "Rain stopped 
and not so cold. Fair cover; still soaked but con- 
fident." 

We had our first narrow escape that day. We 
were lying in the comer of a hedge. It was so misty 
as to give almost the effect of night, but so long 
past day as to make travelling unduly dangerous. 
When the mist lifted we found ourselves within 
fifty yards of a thickly populated village with just 

170 



May Sunday 21 



191^ 






■-'^^m-^ ?^.^ 






J 
Monday 22 ■^" / 



iv' 






/- 



Tuesciav"23 



cJ- 



SALIENT DETAILS OF THE THIRD ESCAl'E. 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



a narrow strip of field between. We could hear all 
the early morning bustle of any village, the world 
over. This was about three o'clock. An old man 
followed by a dog made straight for us. I had just 
come off the watch, which we took turn about. Sim- 
mons whistled cautiously to me, the very sound a 
warning to be quiet. 

I looked up. The old man wandered along the 
hedge and stood over him for several minutes. 

It was very trying but he lay motionless, for fear 
of the dog. A blow would have sufficed for the old 
man. The latter remained so for a couple of min- 
utes, standing over him, busy. 

The meals for that day were {>eas and oats. It 
was a slow way of making a meal. We liked the 
oats the best and pulled some whenever we came to 
them, if our pockets were not already full, so that 
they should always be so. We ate them as we went, 
from the cupped hand, spilling some and spitting 
out the husks of the others which sometimes stuck in 
our throats, making them very raw. 

For August twenty- fourth the diary reads : "Very 
hard night. Crossed about five kilometres of swamps 
and numerous canals. Bad accident. Clothes went 

171 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

to the bottom, but recovered. We are soaked, as 
usual, and only made about eleven kilometres. Are 
outside town of Bremen. Cover very poor. Meals 
for the day: Nix. Still confident." The cover 
ranked before the food as an item of interest to us. 
Knowing the general direction of Bremen from the 
camp, and that it was much the largest town in the 
vicinity, we experienced no difficulty in locating it 
by the reflection of its lights against the sky. 

"August twenty-fifth : More rain and cold. Hid- 
ing on the bank of the Weser. Better going last 
night. Going to look for boat to-night. River two 
hundred yards broad. Socks played out. Made 
pair out of a shirt. Met a cow. Meals for day: 
turnips, carrots and milk." 

August 26th: More rain. Found boat and 
crossed river. Hedges grown so close and so many 
of them, we have to go around them. Takes a lot 
of time. Otherwise going good. Meals for the 
day: turnip, peas and oats. Met another cow. 
Frisked her. Cover none too good. Trying to dry 
our clothes in sun. More confident." We always 
became more confident at the slightest semblance of 
warmth. 

172 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



The socks we made out of a shirt which came from 
the clothes-line of some haus-frau. We made 
"dutch" socks in Western fashion by cutting out 
large diamond shaped pieces of the cloth, which 
when the foot was placed on it, folded up nicely into 
a sock of a kind. 

The cow, or rather, her milk, was the greatest 
treat of all. 

It required some searching before we found a boat. 
We finally discovered a boat house which we broke 
into and by great good luck found inside it a boat 
which answered our purpose. Our chief concern was 
lest the owners might raise a hue and cry against 
the theft. However, when we reached the further 
shore we gave the boat a good push out into the 
stream so that if they attempted to follow our trail 
they might find the boat a long ways down stream. 

"August twenty-seventh: Rain left off. Try- 
ing to dry ourselves in sun. Had a hard night 
keeping clear of town. Good cover in a wood. 
Meals: turnips and another obliging cow. Feet 
pretty sore. No socks. Still in the best otherwise." 

The town in question was the second one we 
passed after leaving Bremen. We saw the reflec- 

173 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

tion of its lights in the sky and thought that we 
should easily miss it. But suddenly from some high 
ground we found ourselves working directly down 
on the streets so close below us that we could dis- 
cern people going to and fro. We turned and fled. 

Swinging well round to the south we thought at 
last to clear the town easily, instead of which we 
again came up against it, in the outskirts this time. 
And we repeated that disheartening performance a 
couple of times before we cleared the obstacle and 
once more swung on our way. 

It was such occurrences as this that disheartened 
us more than anything else, even the great hard- 
ships. To labor and travail, to do the seemingly 
impossible, night after night and then in the snap 
of a finger to find all our pains, all our agony gone 
for nothing, reacted on us terribly at times. 

On the following morning we met with our second 
narrow escape, under much the same circumstances 
as the first. We had crawled into a hedge toward 
the heel of the night, and rather earlier than usual 
on account of a thick mist which prevented us from 
holding to our course. When it lifted we made out 
the slope of a house roof shoving itself out of the 

174 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



grey fog directly in front of us. Our hedge divided 
two fields, in both of which labourers were already 
cutting the crops. In this hedge, on each side of us, 
were gateways so close together that when, as occa- 
sionally happened, people passed through one, we 
were forced to crawl up to the other to avoid detec- 
tion. We had done so again when, without warn- 
ing, a drover came plodding up behind his sheep. 
We had no time in which to go back up the hedge. 
The sheep crowded from the rear and overflowed at 
the narrow gateway into the hedge where we lay and 
so ran over our bodies. We remained quiet, thinking 
he would pass on; but what with the frightened 
actions of his sheep and the yelping of the dog his 
attention was inevitably attracted to the spot where 
we lay. He came over, looked down at us, but said 
nothing and stalked on. We were uncertain as to 
whether he had seen us or not. Numerous incidents 
of a similar nature had made us overconfident. We 
had previously escaped detection in some very tight 
corners by simply lying quiet. Casual travelers had 
all but walked on us upon several occasions, and at 
night we ourselves passed many people and thought 
nothing of it. 

175 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

A moment later the shepherd walked off directly 
toward the labourers, glancing back over his shoulder 
at us as he did so. We struck out at once, before 
the crowd could gather. We had, at the beginning 
of this, our third escape, agreed not to be taken alive 
to go through a repetition of the torture of mind and 
body which we had already vmdergone, and, perhaps 
for this time, worse. And it was understood that if 
one played out the other should carry on. Each of 
us had a stout club and could have made a tidy 
fight. 

Concealment was useless and, furthermore, im- 
possible. We passed close by a group of the harvest- 
ers and headed for a wood that lay on the other side 
of them. They could not mistake either the vermil- 
ion circles on our khaki tunics, faded though they 
were, nor our wild and dilapidated appearance, which 
was not made more reassuring by the clubs we car- 
ried. Glancing back, we saw them gathering hur- 
riedly in little knots. 

We reached the wood, flung ourselves down and 
watched them until dark, during which time they 
made no attempt to follow us. Nor did we see any 

176 



THE THIRD ESCAPE 



sign of other pursuers, though we kept on the qui vive 
all night, as we trudged through the interminable 
fields, forcing our way through tight hedges and 
plunging waist deep into the water of small canals. 



177 



CHAPTER XVII 

What Happened in the Wood 

Weather Bad but Hopes High — Primitive Dressmaking — ^ 
The Woman at the Farm — The Zeppelin — The Fight in 
the Wood. 

The only roads we habitually used were side ones, 
and especially did we avoid any with telegraph 
wires which might be used against us. It was a flat 
and swampy country, full of mist, and the nights 
were few in which it did not rain. And we were al- 
ways very wet and very cold. The latter was worse 
than the lack of food. Sometimes we struggled for 
hours at a time, knee-deep in desolate stretches of 
mist-covered morasses which gave no promise of 
firm footing but which often dropped us in to the 
waist instead. In addition, the country was cut up 
by numerous small ditches, six to eight feet wide, 
which along toward morning presented so much of 
an effort in the jumping that we usually plunged 
into the water by preference. Our feet were adding 

178 



WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOOD 

to our misery by this time. On one occasion, as we 
dragged ourselves out of the water, two dogs came 
rushing at us and then followed, yelping. It was 
nearly daylight and a woman came down to see 
what was going on. We remained motionless near 
a hedge. She failed to see us, which was perhaps 
good luck for both her and us. 

The diary for that period reads : "August 28th : 
Rain worse than ever. Not a piece of our clothes 
dry and too much water to lie down. Good going 
last night. Cover in a wood outside village. Good. 
Meals: Nix. Ought to reach the Hustre river to- 
night. In good spirits." 

"August 29th: Rain stopped and a bit of sun 
came out. Feeling much more cheerful. Just had 
a shave and clean-up. Going last night very bad. 
Swamps and canals. Had to leave our course. Feet 
feeling better. Meals for the day: turnips, peas 
and green apples. Did not reach the river. All's 
well. No complaints." That shave was a terrible 
torture. 

"August thirtieth: Rain, thunder and lightning 
most of last night. Got a bit of shelter in a cow- 
shed in a field. We are wet and cold as usual, with 

179 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

no sun to dry. Fair cover in a small wood. Going 
good last night. Haven't struck the Hustre yet. 
Meals : green apples and brambles. Feet pretty sore. 
Made a needle out of wood and did a bit of sew- 
ing. Best of health." 

We had been ploughing through the mist, confused 
by it and the numerous hedges, when at the side of 
a small field we had run into this cowshed, a tumble- 
down affair of sods, caved in at the sides and partly 
covered by a thatched roof. We built up the side 
from which the wind came the worst, hung a rotting 
canvas we found at the other end and then snuggled 
up together to exchange warmth. 

The mist had scarcely lifted when we heard a 
slight noise. We looked up. A woman was at the 
entrance to our hovel, looking down full at us. She 
turned and walked away. We rose, still dazed with 
sleep, and found that we were quite close to a farm- 
house which owing to the mist we had failed to ob- 
serve before, and from which our visitor had evi- 
dently observed the result of our building operations. 
"She saw us," I said, and we regretted not having 
seized her. She appeared to be signalling. 

A good-sized wood lay well up ahead. "Come 
i8o 



WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOOD 

on," I said. "Let's beat it. We can handle a few 
of 'em better than the whole mob." We could see 
the farm labourers gathering in a knot. The rain 
came on just then and perhaps assisted in dampening 
their ardour. At any rate they did not follow us into 
the wood. We spent rather an uneasy time though, 
when, late that day, some men approached our 
hiding place in a clump of bushes and for half an 
hour shot their fowling pieces off all around where 
we lay. 

They did not seem to be after us ; more likely they 
were hunters. The same thing had happened in a 
lesser degree several times before. None the less it 
was very uncomfortable to have the buckshot rat- 
tling all around us in the bushes where we lay and we 
felt much better when they had gone. 

As for the wooden needle: That was of course 
the result of our necessity. It was a long thorn — 
first, a punch in the cloth and like as not a stab in 
the finger in the bargain, then a withdrawal of the 
crude needle and a careful threading of the hole 
with our coarse string, after the fashion of a clumsy 
shoemaker. Some sewing ! Some needlewoman I 

i8i 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

The green apples and the berries which we got 
here proved a most welcome change in our diet. 

''August thirty-first: Not much rain but very 
cold. Too dark to travel last night. No stars out 
to go by. Crossed the river this morning, at last. 
Good cover in bushes. Feet are badly peeled. Hope 
for better luck to-night. Meals : apples and turnips. 
Cold and rain are putting us in bad state. But still 
confident." We were daily growing weaker and 
prayed only that our strength would last to put us 
over the border. 

"September first: No rain and a little sun. Feel- 
ing much better. Going last night much the best we 
have had. Good cover in a thicket. Will soon be 
going over the same country we did last time we 
escaped. Meals: peas and beans. Still in good 
health." 

"September second: No rain, but cold out of 
the sun. Pretty fair going last night. Feet still 
sore. Cover on straw stack in middle of field. 
Warmer than the woods. Zeppelin just passed 
oveihead going north. Meals: turnips, carrots, ap- 
ples and peas." 

"September third: Fine weather. Good going 
182 



WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOOD 

last night. Feet still pretty bad. Had to cut my 
boots. Fine cover in the wood. Meals : baked po- 
tatoes. Feel fuller." This was our first cooked 
meal and the pleasure it gave us was beyond all 
words. We lit it under cover of night so that by 
the time day had come there was nothing but glowing 
coals in which the potatoes roasted while we slept. 

My feet were badly swollen by this time so that 
I was faint with the pain of them. 

The Zeppelin, strange though it was under the cir- 
cumstances, was only a small incident in many others 
of vaster importance which were happening daily to 
us but it was flying so low that we deemed it best 
not to move until it had passed. We wondered if 
it were going to England, and envied it. 

"September fourth : More rain. Hard going half 
the night. Crossed large peat bog and wet to the 
waist. Very cold. Cover in wood. None too 
good. Got scared out of our first cover. Meals: 
Milk, apples and peas. Feet not so sore. Still rain- 
ing and cold. We should soon be at the River Ems." 

On the evening of this day we walked out to the 
edge of the wood we were in and stood there sizing 
up the near-by village. It was about seven o'clock 

183 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

and wanted about an hour to darkness md our usual 
time for hitting the trail. Without any warning, a 
burly farmer confronted us. He was as badly start- 
led as we were. Our remnants of painted uniforms 
and our ragged, soaked and generally filthy condi- 
tion no doubt added to our terrible appearance. We 
had long since lost our caps and our hair was matted 
liks a dog's. The German was armed with a double- 
barreled shotgun, and at his heels a powerful-look- 
ing dog showed his teeth to us, so that I marked 
the red of his tongue. If he raised the alarm we 
were done for. We still had our cudgels. 

I do not know whose was the offensive. But I 
do know that the three of us came together with 
one accord in a wild and terrible medley of oaths 
in two languages and of murderous blows that beat 
like flails at the threshing. Simmons and I strug- 
gled for the gun which he tried so hard to turn on 
us, the dog meanwhile sinking its teeth deep in our 
unprotected legs and leaping vainly at our throats; 
while we felt with clutching fingers for his master's, 
intent only that he should not shout. 

In those mad moments there sped through our 
brains the reel of that whole horrid film of fifteen 

184 



WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOOD 

months' torture of mind and body; the pale, blood- 
covered faces of our murdered comrades of the regi- 
ment, the cries of the patient Russians behind the 
trees, and our own slow and deadly starvation and 
planned mistreatment. All these, and God only 
knows what else, should be ours again if we should 
be recaptured. 

We were near to Holland. In fancy and by con- 
trast we saw the fair English fields and the rolling 
beauty that is Ontario's; we heard the good English 
tongue and beheld the dear faces of our own folk. 
We bore that farmer no ill will. And his dog was 
to the last a very faithful animal, as our clothes and 
limbs bore true witness. We had no ropes. And 
we were two very desperate men, badly put upon. 

We dropped his gun in the bushes, together with 
the body of his dog; and passed on. It had not 
been iired and we had no desire to have the charge 
of carrying firearms added to the others against us if, 
in spite of all, we should be so unfortunate as to be 
recaptured. 



185 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Last Lap 

Crossing the River — The Terrible Swamp — Valuable Ap- 
ples — Safe Across the Border — Real Walking at Last — 
Barbarous Barbering. 

"September fifth: Stopped raining and a little 
warmer. Got our clothes dry once more. Cover in 
a wood outside a small town. Going last night good, 
after we had crossed another peat bog. Meals : milk, 
baked potatoes and apples. Hope to reach the river 
to-night. Bad feet. Best of health otherwise." 

"September sixth : No rain and warmer. Heavy 
dew. Fairly good going. Best of cover. Had a 
fire. Pretty comfortable. Milk, potatoes, apples." 

"September seventh: Still fine weather. Very 
poor cover in a hedge. Good load to go on. Made 
pretty good time last night. Feet feeling better. 
Running out of tobacco. Otherwise in the best and 
still hope the same. Meals : potatoes and beets." 

We spent a great deal of time discussing ways 
i86 



THE LAST LAP 



and means of adding to our stock of tobacco. Any 
smoker knows what it is to want the weed. Con- 
sider then our half famished, wet and utterly weary 
condition. It was a real necessity to us. We dis- 
cussed waiting at the roadside until a man with a 
pipe appeared; when we should rob him. We dis- 
missed that as too hazardous. It would be necessary 
to kill him and that seemed a bit thick for a pipe of 
tobacco. So we did the only thing that was left to 
do — cut down our already scanty rations of tobacco 
and took scrupulous care to smoke to a clean ash 
every vestige of each heel of old pipe, but in spite 
of that our supply became exhausted. 

"September eighth: Lovely weather to-day. 
Good going last night in small swamp. Good cover 
in a forest on the banks of the Ems. We will try 
to cross to-night. Meals: potatoes and mangels. 
Our final try for liberty. Feel good for it." 

We had arrived at the river at two o'clock that 
morning, too played out to attempt the crossing then. 
We retraced our steps to a potato field, dug some 
of the tubers and, when daylight came, lit a fire 
and roasted them. We were in a dense forest of 
young trees, so that by lighting the fire before the 

187 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

mist lifted, the latter hid our smoke. We remained 
unperceived, though we could hear voices and foot- 
steps on every side. 

"September ninth: Swam the river and two 
canals. Crossed a large swamp. No rain but very 
cold. Think we are over the border. Very poor 
cover in a hedge. Wet to the skin. Clothes got 
soaked but in best of spirits and confident." 

We went down to survey the river shortly before 
dusk and found it both broad and swift. We went 
back again and tore a gate from its hinges, carried 
it the five hundred yards down to the river and 
then stripped for the crossing. The gate was not big 
enough to carry us but answered for our clothes. 
Simmons swam ahead, guiding it, while I shoved 
from behind. We made the crossing without mis- 
hap but straightway fell into one of the worst expe- 
riences of the entire trip. We plunged into a swamp 
which took us five hours to get through. There 
were moments when we all but gave up and thought 
we should never get out. At times we sank in it up 
to our waists, particularly after leaping at the 
numerous tufts of grass which seemed to promise a 
footing that they never realised and which some- 

i88 



THE LAST LAP 



times sent us in it to the armpits, so that we were 
sure we were doomed to be sucked down for good in 
the filthy mess. 

The fearful odour that our plunging around stir- 
red up, naturally aided our nervous imaginings and 
it was undoubtedly the worst trial we had yet met 
with on the journey. I cannot convey the black de- 
spair which took possession of our hearts at the seem- 
ing hopelessness of all our efforts to find firm foot- 
ing or a break in the landscape which might indicate 
a change in the nature of the country, a light, a voice, 
anything that would help to lift from our hearts the 
feeling of utter isolation from all human assistance 
and the seeming certainty that a few bubbles would 
be the only indication that we had struggled there. 
The darkness of the night intensified these thoughts. 
The rain did not matter. In fact it helped; for we 
were covered with the worse than water of the 
morass. 

We looked at one another. We dared not speak. 
Anyhow, to do so was not our custom at such times 
as these. But each knew. A dull anger took pos- 
session of us at the thought of so inglorious an end 
after all that we had suffered to attain our freedom. 

189 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

With a prayer in our hearts we cast ourselves for- 
ward and somehow, sometime, found at last that we 
were safe and so flung ourselves down in our stink- 
ing clothes to lie like dogs in a drunken stupour that 
recked not of time or of our enemies. 

We discovered an apple orchard here, in which the 
fruit was ripe. All the apples we had had up to date 
had been of the small and green variety. And even 
they, with the occasional milk, represented our all 
of luxury, so that these seemed indeed the food of 
the gods. We proceeded to fill up and after eating 
all that we thought we could, filled our pockets until 
they bulged, and started off, each carrying an arm- 
ful of the fruit. At every step we dropped some. 
We stopped again and ate our surplus to make 
room. We refused to lose any of them. We came 
to a river, stripped, tied our clothes up in a bundle 
and proceeded to swim across, shoving the clothes 
ahead. I lost control of mine and they sank. I 
dived repeatedly in the darkness before I found 
them. The cargo of apples in the pockets made a 
bad matter worse. I should rather have drowned 
than have lost my apples. The possible loss of the 
clothes worried us very little. We had already de- 

190 



THE LAST LAP 



cided in that event to waylay some German Michel 
rather than to go naked into Holland. However, 
by alternately dragging the bundle behind and swim- 
ming on our backs with it held high on the chest with 
one hand, we made the crossing, apples and all. 

We were sitting in the shadow preparing to dress 
and wondering whether we were really over the bor- 
der and if we could safely walk abroad, when we 
heard men walking toward us. We knew them to 
be Germans by the clank of the hobnailed boots 
which all our guards had worn. We had not a stitch 
on and our hearts were in our mouths. The patrol 
of six men stopped within five yards of us and then 
passed on within five feet and did not see us. We 
dressed quickly and went on, only to find a canal, for 
which we had to strip again. 

Arriving at the other side; we dressed in the 
shadow of the bank, crawled to the top and plunged 
through the heather on to a road which we had al- 
most crossed, when there came a cry of "Haiti" 
The patrol must have been standing in the trees 
where we had broken out from the heather, and 
very quietly, too, for we had lain for five minutes 
to make certain that all was safe. Evidently we 

igi 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

were on or near the border if the number of patrols 
was any indication. We were not certain whether 
these were Hollanders or Germans. We made one 
big buck jump. "Fire, Gridley, when ready I" I 
left the entire knee of one trouser leg on a clutching 
thorn. But the patrol did not fire. 

And then another canal. "Pm fed up with swim- 
ming to-night." 

"So am I," agreed Simmons. "There are houses 
over there. There must be a bridge." 

We slunk along the bank and to our joy found a 
small bridge. We dashed across it and debouched 
safely into a tiny village. Here we saw a difference, 
especially in the houses and the roadway. It was 
in the very atmosphere, a result no doubt of instincts 
made keen by the hunted lives we had led. On 
either side the fields stretched out, criss-crossed by a 
perfect network of small canals and ditches, which 
also served as fences. 

We knew we were in Holland. 

We deemed it unwise to show ourselves as yet, 
distrusting the sympathies of the Hollanders and 
fearful that they might give us up; and continued 
this policy until the next day. However, we took 

192 




PRIVATE MERWIN C. SIMMONS OF THE /TH BATTAIJON, 
1st DIVISION, CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE. 



THE LAST LAP 



a chance and stuck to the road, a treat, indeed, 
to feel a firm footing after our weeks of travelling 
across country fields. This enabled us to shove 
thirty miles between us and Germany by morning. 

It was not quite daylight when we espied a cow 
in a field at the roadside and gave chase. There 
was no other food in sight, so when our quarry threw 
up its tail and bounced off ; we set out grimly to run 
our breakfast down. It was half an hour later that 
we corralled it in a corner between two broad ditches 
and were already licking our chops in anticipation; 
when we discovered that our cow was only a big 
heifer. Twenty-four hours earlier it would have 
been a tragedy. As it was, we only laughed. Such 
is liberty. 

At this distance from the border we felt that we 
were safe from the Germans but were very much 
afraid that we might be interned. So we holed up 
in a farmhouse which had been partly burned down 
and built a roaring fire out of the remains of the 
charred furniture, placed some of the potatoes that 
were lying about in the fire, made a rough bed and 
went to sleep. Awakening later in the day, we raked 
the blackened potatoes out of the ashes and filled up 

193 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

on them. We were a fearful team; absolutely filthy, 
uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, and with the Rus- 
sian's paint still thick upon us. Afterward we went 
down to the canal and endeavoured to knock the 
worst of it off. All danger was past now. We 
seemed to walk on air. We were once again British 
soldiers. And so fell to abuse of one another, find- 
ing fault and grousing; as all good British soldiers 
do when they are well off. I made out to shave 
Simmons. The terrible razor had never been sharp 
and lately had rusted from its travels. Simmons 
swore lustily and threatened me, ordering me at the 
same time and in no uncertain terms ; to desist from 
the torture. 

"Well, we want to go into Holland lookin' re- 
spectable. What'll they think of British soldiers if 
they see us*? Have a heart I" I expostulated. 

"Don't give a damn! I've had enough for being 
a Canadian; but I won't stand for this." I left 
him with his beard still on in patches and the bare 
spots bleeding angril)^ As I had already committed 
myself, I had to bear in silence his purposely clumsy 
handling of that hack-saw. It was terrible, and Sim- 
mons, the scoundrel, laughed like a demon. 

194 



CHAPTER XIX 

Holland at Last 

"No Intern" — Real Bread — Tipperary — A Real Time — 
The Splendid Hollanders — The Hague. 

The diary summarizes the later events of thati 
day: 

"September tenth : Fine weather and in Holland. 
All our troubles are over. We struck a small town 
called Alboom where the people did everything they 
could for us. Plenty of food. Slept in a house !" 

A man smoking a big pipe and wearing baggy 
breeches and wooden shoes came up and surveyed 
us with kindly amusement, as Simmons scraped at 
me with infinite gusto. He was a Hollander; not 
a "Dutchman." We soon learned that the latter 
was a term of contempt applied by the former to 
the Germans. 

I asked him for some tobacco, which he readily 
gave to us from a capacious pouch. He waved his 
pipe at us in friendly fashion and said something 

195 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

which we took to be a question as to our identity. 

"English," we said, and in desperation turned to 
our scanty stock of French: "Soldats; prisoniers.^' 

"Engelsch I" he boomed. We nodded. He simply 
threw his arms round first one and then the other, so 
that I wiped the ashes from his pipe out of my eyes. 
He lumbered off and shortly returned with a counter- 
part of himself. He talked rapidly to his compan- 
ion and waved his pipe. We made out the words 
"Duitsch," "Engelsch," and enough of others to 
know that he was telling our tale as he imagined it. 

Our fears coming uppermost, we gave voice to 
them: "Intern*?" 

"No intern. Engelsch." The other took up the 
cry: "Engelsch goot I Frient." However our sus- 
picions would not down. 

The first man pointed out to the canal where a 
barge lay and made us understand that it was his. 
He wanted us to work our passage on it down the 
canal with him. They invited us by signs to go on 
board the barge for breakfast, an invitation which 
we joyfully accepted. We rowed out to the barge 
and sat down in the tiny cabin. The meal was plain. 
On the centre of the table was a loaf of brown bread, 

196 



HOLLAND AT LAST 



quite good enough it was true, but so reminiscent of 
the perennial black ration of the Germans that my 
gorge rose at the sight. Out of the corner of my 
eye I saw a white loaf on the shelf, the first in fifteen 
months. I caught Simmons eyeing it. We ex- 
changed guilty looks but were ashamed to ask for it. 
They offered us the brown loaf and delicious coffee. 
I thought perhaps that if we exhausted the brown 
loaf the other might be forthcoming. I kicked 
Simmons on the shins and fell to on it, and, as oppor- 
tunity offered, thrust pieces in the pockets of my 
tunic until, to our relief, they brought out the white 
bread, which we devoured to the last crumb. It 
was very good. - 

We filled our pipes in high contentment and went 
ashore, where a procession of enthusiastic villagers 
waited to escort us to the village. Men, women and 
children, wooden shoes and all, there were four hun- 
dred of them. The men all shook hands and pressed 
money on us. The women cried and one white- 
haired old lady kissed us both. The quaint little 
roly-poly children ran at our sides, a half dozen of 
them struggling to hold our fingers in their chubby 
fists. 

197 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

The procession started off, the burgomaster lead- 
ing, the two sailors and ourselves coming next. 
Some one behind dragged out a mouth organ and 
struck up Tipperary, and men, women and children 
all joined in. It was glorious. We sang, too, in 
English, and they in their tongue. The result was 
so ridiculous a medley that I smiled myself; but it 
made no difference. The spirit was there; we were 
happy. 

Arriving at the village the burgomaster took us 
to his home and sat us down to a steaming breakfast, 
while a few of the chosen were invited in to watch 
us polish it off. The crowd remained outside, 
choking the road. Some of the bolder of the children 
crept slyly in the door, others peered shyly at us 
from the crack of it. And one little chap, braver 
than his comrades, clumped sturdily up to my knee, 
where he stood clutching it in round-eyed wonder 
and saying never a word for the rest of the meal, 
envied of his mates. 

Not until we had leaned back, not contented, but 
ashamed to ask for more, did our hosts give vent to 
the curiosity that was eating into their vitals. An 
interpreter was found and they led us out to the 

198 



HOLLAND AT LAST 



road so that all might hear. The crowd flocked 
around while the officials questioned us. Many were 
the smothered interjections that went up from the 
men and exclamations of pity from the women as our 
tale unfolded. And the warm sympathy of their 
honest faces warmed our hearts like a good fire. 

We started off on our triumphal course again. 
We were repeatedly invited into houses for some- 
thing to eat. We accepted seven such breakfast in- 
vitations during the next two and a half hours and 
stopped only out of shame. We were still hungry. 
Every one gave us cigars, immense things, which 
projected from every pocket and which we carried in 
bundles under our arms. There was no refusing 
them. They were the insignia of the entente. And 
the coffee ! The good, honest, Holland coffee with 
no acorns in it! I doubt if our starving bodies 
could have carried us many days more on the un- 
cooked roots we had been living on. The motherly 
housewives, in their Grecian-like helmets of metal 
and glass that fit closely over their smoothed hair 
like skull-caps, bustled merrily about, intent only 
on replenishing our plates and cups, full of a tear- 
ful sympathy which was as welcome as their food. 

199 



. THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Later in the day the officials took us to the police 

station at . We became very much alarmed 

again. They read our thoughts and a subdued mur- 
mur of: "No intern, no intern," swelled up. The 
local burgomaster came to us. His first words, and 
in good English, too, were : "Have something to eat.*' 
We did. And then more cigars. The police were a 
splendid lot of men. They loaded us down with 
gifts and asked perfunctory questions for their rec- 
ords. One of them, H. Letema, of , took us to 

his home, where his comely wife and daughter loaded 
the table with good things; while he brought out 
more cigars. He showed us to a bed-room before 
we understood where he was taking us. We re- 
fused, for reasons of a purely personal nature. 
"Nix," we said, and when he would not accept our 
refusal we tried it in Niederlander. "No, no." 
Still he persisted, and his good wife too. So we 
led him firmly aside and showed him the indescrib- 
ably vemiinous condition we were in. That con- 
vinced him. They appreciated that little touch and 
gave us a deep pile of blankets, flung down on three 
feet of sweet-smelling straw in an outhouse, where 
we slept as we had not slept for many months. 

200 



HOLLAND AT LAST 



In the morning Letema escorted us down to Aas- 
chen, which was the nearest large town. A Belgian 
and a Holland lady, hearing of the escaped English 
prisoners, met us within twenty minutes of our ar- 
rival, took us in hand and loaded us down with kind- 
nesses. We ate only five full sized meals that day, 
not counting the extras we absorbed between them. 
And there were more cigars. The raw oats and 
potatoes seemed a long way off. 

Our day at Aaschen was a repetition of the pre- 
vious one at Alboom and Borger, but on a grander 
scale. The ladies took us down to Rotterdam and 
did not leave us until they had turned us over to 
the British consul there, whose name I have forgot- 
ten but who, with the vice consul, Mr. Mueller, was 
very kind indeed; in fact, all whom we met, irre- 
spective of their nationality, age or sex placed us un- 
der eternfJ obligations to them. In particular Mr. 
Neilson, the rector of the English church and in 
charge of the Sailors' Institute there, seemed to live 
only for us. 

Mr. Henken at the American consulate was 
equally kind. They lodged us at the Seaman's Rest, 
took our painted rags away and clothed us in blue 

201 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

"civvie" suits which seemed to us the height of sinful 
luxury. We were shaved, clean and could eat every- 
thing in sight, at any time of the day or night. And 
did so. The meals we used to shift I We were 
very glad to get rid of our waterproof suits — for 
that is what they had become, from the paint. 

Mr. Neilson took us sight seeing every day. Once 
we went out to Mr. Carnegie's Peace Palace which 
had been closed on account of the war but which we 
were permitted to inspect. I had not thought such 
buildings were done, except in dreams. It made our 
own bitter past seem unreal. The Italian room, in 
particular, seemed like a delicate canvas in marble 
and done in a fashion the memory of which gripped 
me for days and still haunts me. We spent days 
thus; supremely happy. 

We were joined here by Jerry Burke of the 8th 
Battalion of Winnipeg. He was a nephew of Sir 
Sam Hu^es, the then Canadian Minister of Mili- 
tia and had just made his escape from some other 
camp. 

We were to have left on the fifth with a fleet of 
boats which sailed then. By the time we had got on 
board, however, the sailors from the first boat were 

202 



HOLLAND AT LAST 



returning. They had been torpedoed. And that 
stopped us. 

We got away on the S. S. Grenadier on the six- 
teenth, and after hugging the length of the Eng- 
lish Coast, arrived safely at Newcastle-upon-Tyne 
on the eighteenth. 

Here our troubles began I 



203 



CHAPTER XX 

"It's a Way They Have in the Army" 

Red Tape in the Army — A Disgruntled Soldier — "Old Sol- 
dier, Old Fox" — A Touch for Twenty Quid — Aug en 
Rechts at Seaford — Canada! 

My family in Canada have since remarked that 
although my letters had invariably been cheerful 
throughout my imprisonment, from the time I set 
foot on English soil they reflected the deepest 
despondency. That could be explained in part by 
the fact that uncheerful letters could not pass the 
German but could pass the British censor. But 
more particularly it was due to the fact that I be- 
came entangled in the interminable red tape of the 
army system, and, instead of meeting with the warm 
sympathy that an exile longs for, met, on the part 
of the army, with cold suspicion ; however kind some 
individuals were to me. 

Simmons and I were not permitted to leave the 
boat until the military came for us. So far so good. 

204 



"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY" 

We were taken to the headquarters of the General 
Officer Commanding that district. He briefly exam- 
ined us and good-naturedly gave us some money out 
of his own pocket and tickets to London, where we 
were ordered to report at the War Office. 

Arriving in "The Smoke," as the army has named 
that city, we proceeded the next morning to 14 
Downing Street and sent our names in to the offi- 
cial we had been directed to by the general. He was 
in mufti, whoever he was, and received us kindly 
enough. We were closely questioned about our ex- 
periences, particularly in relation to our guards, 
food, treatment, and so on. He also asked us as to 
the amount of sickness among the prisoners, the con- 
dition of the country, and so on. 

Dismissed, we made a dash down past Big Ben 
and the Parliament Buildings for the Canadian Pay 
and Record Office, where at Millbank it overlooked 
the Thames. A sergeant took our names and after 
a time took us, too, in to the paymaster. Simmons 
drew his money without difficulty but I found 
that I was fifteen months dead and was told that I 
could get no money until my identity was reestab- 
lished. I protested ; so much so in fact that I fully 

205 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

expected to land in the "clink." No use. I was 
sent out on the street talking to myself. 

We next called on Lady Rivers-Bulkeley and 
Lady Drummond to thank them for the very great 
kindness of themselves and the Canadian Red Cross 
in sending us our parcels regularly, and without 
which we would assuredly have been too weak to 
have made our escape. Lady Farquhar, the wife of 
our late commanding officer, was out of town, so 
we did not see her, much as we desired to thank her 
for similar kindnesses. 

Simmons was single. He was sent to Canada at 
once and was promptly discharged. I had a wife 
and family awaiting me there and I wanted badly 
to go to them by the next boat. My wife had been 
receiving letters from me during my fifteen months' 
imprisonment ; she had regularly received her separa- 
tion allowance; the Canadian Red Cross and many 
kind friends in London had been sending me pris- 
oner-of-war parcels for a year; the authorities ad- 
mitted my identity and my former comrades recog- 
nised me; I had fifteen months' pay at $1.20 a day, 
besides a subsistence allowance of sixty-five cents a 
day, coming to me; but could not draw a cent of it. 

206 




THE CEMETERY AT CELLE LAAGER Z 1 CAMP. 




CORPORAL EDWARDS (SECOND FROM LEFT) AFTER HIS ESCAPE THE 
TWO GOLD BARS ON HIS LEFT COAT SLEEVE INDICATE 
THAT HE HAS BEEN TWICE WOUNDED 



"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY" 

I was dead. And continued so for three months. 
There is no explanation. "It's a way they have in 
the Army" ; or so the army says. 

In the end it was only through the active interven- 
tion of Sir George Perley, the Canadian High Com- 
missioner in London that my case was righted. He, 
I believe, cabled the Ottawa authorities, who in turn 
got in touch with my wife, who produced the neces- 
sary documentary evidence to prove that I had been 
alive and a prisoner all this time. 

I went to the depot at Seaford. I borrowed from 
my old friends. I hung round the pay office. The 
paymaster said I was not on the strength of the regi- 
ment. I was old soldier enough to profit by that ca- 
lamity at least. The bitter injustice of such miscar- 
riage of justice blinded me, as I think it eventually 
does most soldiers, to the accepted code of civil life. 
I refused to attend roll call or do drills, fatigues, or 
any other part of my regimental duties other than 
certain interesting and thrice-daily rites not uncon- 
nected with the kitchen. 

It is the commonness, the constant repetition of 
such stupidity and such lack of action that so much 
linjures the reputation for intelligence of the army in 

207 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

the minds of those who have served in it; so that 
those who know it best, like it least — and put up 
with it only because it is the poor instrument of a 
good cause. 

The paymaster fell sick. A young subaltern was 
acting for him. My sergeant pal tipped me off. As 
I have said, I was an old soldier with all that that 
implies. He marched me up to the officer, already 
more or less at sea about his new duties. I asked for 
money. He was aware of my history but not of the 
tangle I was in : 

"How much*?" 

I wondered how much the traffic would bear. 

"Twenty quid, sir," I ventured. He went up in 
the air. 

"Impossible ! I'll give you ten." 

I O. K'd that while the words were yet warm on 
his lips. Fifty dollars is a great deal of money to 
a soldier. He gave it to me with a pass for Scot- 
land — where I had relatives — to which I had long 
been entitled but which had been useless to me as 
long as I had no money. 

I quickly gathered my cronies together and we 
packed into the canteen to celebrate the occasion fit- 

208 



"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY" 

tingly, in the only fashion a good soldier knows, in 
army beer so thick and strong that the hops floated 
on the tops of the mess-tins. While searching for 
the bottom of one of these I heard the orderly shout- 
ing: "Corporal Edwards I Corporal Edwards I" The 
other men gathered round me in the corner, drinking, 
while I scrunched down so that the orderly passed 
on and out still shouting my name. 

I fled to the tent and was hastily getting my 
things together when a corporal came hot-foot say- 
ing that the officer wanted me at once. I went in, 
gave him my very best regimental salute and stood 
at attention. 

"I find that you are not on the strength, cor- 
poral, and are not entitled to any money, so I'll 
trouble you to return that money I gave you." 

"I'm sorry, sir," I said sadly, "but it's gone." 

"Gone? How?" 

"Debts, sir," I said firmly. "My mates have been 
keeping me going." 

"Well, you must get it back from them at once 
and return it to me. It's most irregular. Push on 
now and see that you're back here in an hour's time 

209 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

with that money before those fellows spend it all in 
the canteen." 

"Very good, sir." I gave him a smashing good 
Augen Rechts to cheer him up against the time he 
should discover that I was well on my way to Scot- 
land. 

And I remained there until I received notice that 
my regimental bones had been officially exhumed; 
after which I had no difficulty in getting my back 
pay and three months' furlough for Canada and 
home I 

Author's Note. — An amusing and at the same time 
gratifying sequel to this story developed immediately upon 
the heels of its publication in a considerably smaller form 
in the Saturday Evening Post. Sergeant Edwards, who 
had not previously been consulted by the authorities, was 
at once offered his choice between doing "duty" in Canada 
or taking a discharge from the army, instead of going over- 
seas again. He chose the discharge. 

An interesting fact in connection with Brumley, the man 
who was the first to be recaptured on the second attempt 
to escape, is that according to a post card received from 
him by his wife, he has since made two other unsuccessful 
attempts at escape. Scarfe, who was exchanged to Switzer- 
land, reports that he has married a Swiss girl there. 
Stamper, another Patricia who was captured at the same 
time as Edwards, has recently been exchanged and is now 
in England. Scott, who was captured with the men of an 

3IQ 



"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY" 

English regiment, was exchanged to Switzerland and re- 
cently returned to Toronto and has been in hospital, in a 
serious condition, ever since. The fate of the others is un- 
known. 



211 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

In order to remove any vestige of doubt in the 
reader's mind as to the authenticity of Corporal Ed- 
wards' tale, it has been deemed advisable to present 
reproductions of certain newspaper articles and cor- 
respondence which bear directly on some of the 
points touched upon in the story. 

It will be noticed that quite aside from the major 
fact of the escape itself having been brought out 
here, there is the equally important one of the bring- 
ing out of a great number of lesser points which tally 
to a hair with such references to them as are made 
in the story, such for instance as the references to 
the delay in England, the references in their post 
cards of those fellow-prisoners who remain in Ger- 
many and other facts of a similar nature. 

The following are exact reproductions in every 
case, except for the explanatory note which prefaces 
each item. 



212 



THE EVIDENCE IN TPIE CASE 

Extract from Toronto Daily Star^ May 30, 19 15* 

WAS BACK ONLY THREE WEEKS 

Corp. Edwards, Reported Missing, Was Wounded 
Short Time Ago. 

Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess 
Pats who is reported missing to-day, has only been 
back at the trenches for three weeks, after having 
been wounded and in England for a month with 
a bullet in his foot. He lived at 70 Standish 
Avenue, Rosedale, where his wife and three young 
sons now live. He is 38 years of age and has been 
in Canada ten years. Previous service in Africa 
and India with the Gordon Highlanders is to his 
credit. 

Letter from Corporal Edwards to His Wife in 
Toronto. 

Mon Adress exacte: 
GIESSEN (Allemagne) 
Compagnie No. 6 Baraque No. A. 
Nom et Prenom: E. Edwards. Oct. 2nd, 1915. 

My Dearest Em: A few more lines, hoping 
they find all in the best of health and everything 
going on all right. I received your parcels all 
right. They were a treat and came in good con- 
dition. How are the boys getting along? Aw- 
213 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

fully sorry about Hector but hope he is all right 
again, poor chap's been having a hard time of it. 
How are Gordon and Frank. Tell them I was 
asking for them. I guess the Beastie has grown 
quite a big chap. Thanks for J. Bimies' address. 
I will drop him a card some time but you see I can 
only send two letters a month. Jack wanted me 
to write to the lodge but I can't see how I can man- 
age it. Em, lass, don't send me any clothing as I 
will manage all right. Col. Farquhar's wife is go- 
ing to send me out some and Major Gault is send- 
ing tobacco and cigarettes so I will be all right. I 
had a parcel from Bob with a shirt and some eat- 
ables; also one from Jean at Blacktop and one 
from home. We are always on the lookout for 
them. Have you had any word from Mina? I've 
had letters from them all. We are having rather 
cool weather. I sent a post card to G. Nelson; I 
don't know if he ever got it but you can ask him 
when he comes up. Em, what are you doing about 
the house*? Are you getting it fixed up or are you 
coming over home*? It would be rather late this 
year to come over but please yourself; only let me 
know what you are doing. Is George still in Can- 
ada? Jean was expecting him to drop in any time. 
He has been very good to me ever since I landed 
first in England. I will never be able to pay her 
214 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

back. I can't give you any news as I don't know 
it myself. Don't wait on a letter from me before 
you write but write often and tell me all about 
yourself and the boys. Tell Jack to write and I 
will drop him a card when I can. Keep your 
heart up and look after yourself. Tell Miss 
Holmes I was asking for her; also Mrs. Arlow. 
Tell her I got her letter ; also tell all my friends I 
was asking for them. If Mr. Skerrow comes up 
again tell him I am doing fine but would sooner be 
working up in N. Toronto — but am making the 
best of it. I think I will stop Em; I have really 
nothing to tell you, only write soon and often. 
Give the boys a tight one for me. Best love to 
you all. Good bye. 

Your Affect. Ed. 
149 Corpl. E. Edwards, 
Barrack A., 
Company 6, 

Prisoner of War. 
Giessen, Germany. 

P. S. Just received your letter Sept. 3rd. Tell 
Mrs. Bownie not to bother sending anything. I 
have got all I want. Can't send a long letter. 
This is all we are allowed. Ed. 

215 



THE ESCAPE OP A PRINCESS PAT 

Extract from Montreal Gazette, Sept. 21, 1916. 

EDWARD EDWARDS ESCAPES FROM FOE 

Toronto Soldier With Two Others Make Get-Away. 

Wander for Three Weeks. 

Brass Band Escorts Them to Mayor of Town in 

Holland. 

London, Sept. 21. — Registered as dead by the 
Canadian Pay and Record office, which was about 
to authorise distribution of their effects, Lance- 
Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess Patricias, 
70 Standish Avenue; Pte. James Jerry Burke 
(1216) Eighth Battalion, Winnipeg and Pte. 
M. C. Simmons (23445) ^^ Seventh Battalion, 
Port Arthur, have arrived in London after having 
escaped from a German prison camp. They ex- 
perienced some strenuous adventures. For three 
weeks they were at large; slowly and cautiously 
wending their way to the Holland frontier, they 
covered the distance of 150 miles. In Holland 
the fugitives to their surprise, found a warm wel- 
come. In fact, a local band headed them in pro- 
cession to the Mayor, who in turn communicated 
with the British Consul, with the result that they 
were shipped to England. 
216 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

Extract from Toronto Daily Star, Sept. 22, 1916. 

MRS. EDWARDS IS REJOICING 

Can Hardly Believe That Husband Escaped from 

German Prison. 

Heard So Many Different Tales. 

Comrades Who Have Returned Assured Her He 

Would Get Away. 

*T cannot believe it until I hear from him. 
But I do hope it is true. I am glad I never kept 
him back, and never told him not to go. He is a 
soldier to the backbone." 

Mrs. Edward Edv^^ards, 70 Standish Avenue, 
Rosedale, was discussing the report that her hus- 
band, Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the 
Princess Patricias, had escaped from a prison camp 
in Germany and after travelling over 150 miles 
of country arrived with two others on Dutch ter- 
ritory whence they were shipped to England after 
being feted by some of the people in Holland. 

"I have heard so many different stories. At first 
I was told he was killed, but later he sent me a let- 
ter from Germany telling me he was in a prison 
camp there. Only last Saturday I had a letter 
from him in which he asked me to send him on a 
box of soap to wash his clothes. He said in that 
letter that he had enough tobacco, cocoa and coffee 
217 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

to last him for some time but he needed soap." 
Lance-Corporal Edwards, who was connected 
with the Royal Grenadiers, in Toronto, was for- 
merly a member of the Gordon Highlanders, and 
fought with the 2nd Battalion of that regiment 
throughout the South African War. Stationed in 
India at the outbreak of that war the regiment 
was sent to South Africa and was shut up in Lady- 
smith. He is the possessor of three medals and 
five clasps. He took part in the great Delhi 
Durbar. 

"Over a year ago my husband was shot in the 
foot," said Mrs. Edwards. "He returned to the 
trenches and was just three weeks back when he 
was posted as missing. That was a year ago last 
May. For a long time I had no word of what had 
happened to him until I had a letter from him." 

Visits from Comrades. 

"Many of the returned Princess Patricias come 
to see me. Only last Sunday one of them said to 
me when talking of my husband: 'He will be 
escaping from the Germans some of these days.' 
And it is just like him to do that. But he and the 
two with him must have suffered terribly in the 
time they were hiding through 150 miles of the 
enemy's country. I wish I had him home now." 
218 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

"I heard from him regularly every six weeks by 
letter. Occasionally he would send me a post- 
card between the letters. He never discussed the 
war, except in the phrase that it could not last for 
ever. He always wrote bright and cheerful let- 
ters." 

At No. 68 Standish Avenue lives the widow of 
Private Percy Edwards, brother of Lance-Cor- 
poral Edwards. Private Edwards was a reservist 
of the Gordon Highlanders and at the outbreak of 
the war was called home to join his regiment. He 
was killed in the first action in which the Gordons 
were engaged. His widow and three young sons 
live next door to Mrs. Edwards, who also has 
three young sons. Both of the Edwards brothers 
and their wives are natives of Aberdeenshire, Scot- 
land. 

Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards^ 70 Standish Ave., 
N. Rosedale, Toronto, Out., Canada. 

12th Sept. 1916. Assen, Holland. Dear Em: 
I guess you will get my letter along with this 
card explaining things. You will know that I 
have escaped from Germany and am on my way to 
England but will write you every chance I get. 
Give my love to the boys and I hope all is well 
219 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

at home. I am feeling pretty good. This is 
where I am just now. Yours ever, Ed. 

Postal to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave.y N. 
Rosedale, Toronto, Canada. 

Sept. 8th, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. 

Dear Em: Hope you have received all my let- 
ters that I have written you from Holland. They 
will tell you all about my escape. I leave here 
for London to-night. Will write you from there. 
Love to the boys. Write me Bulter address. Ed. 

Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., 
N. Rosedale, Toronto, Canada. 

Sept. 22nd, 1916. Folkestone, England. Dear 
Em : Hope you got the cable all right, also some 
of the letters and cards I sent you. What do you 
think of my escape*? Not so bad, eh? Write me 
at Bulter. How are the boys? Give them my 
love. Am back at Shornecliffe with the regiment. 
Will be going on leave. Trying to get over to 
see you. Will write you to-morrow. Write as 
soon as you can. Ed. 

Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, 7 St. Mary's Place, 
Cuttor, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, from Cpl. E. 
Hardy, a fellow prisoner. 

220 




HOMEWARD BOUND. CORPORAL EDWARDS IN CENTER. 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

Mon Adress Exacte: 
Nom et Prenom: Cpl. E. Hardy- 
No. matricule: 1906 
No. de la Compagnie : 8 
Lettre de la baraque: "E" 
GIESSEN (Allemagne) 

Giessen, le 25-9-1916. 

Dear Ted : I received your P. C. quite safe. I 
did a little dance on my own. Charlie Walker 
is away somewhere. How are Dennie and Nobler 
going on. You may be sure I was pleased to hear 
of you getting in port safe. Sorry to hear you 
got wrecked on your first trip but you have no 
worry now. Good Luck. Ted. 

Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards^ Number One Com- 
pany P. P. C. L. /., St. Martins Plains^ Shorneclife, 
England. Via Holland^ from Hookie Walker, a 
fellow prisoner. 

Mon addresse exacte: 
Nom et prenom : C. Walker, 
No. matricule: 

No. de la compagnie : 6, Baraque : B. 
No. du detachement: 1 

Giessen (Allemagne) Oct. ist, 1916. 
221 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Dear Old Ted: I received your P. C. God 
Bless you and good Luck be with you always. I 
have been on the water and got wrecked also but 
I have not given up by any means. I am in the 
best of health. Remember me to all and God be 
with you. Hookie. 

Undated Post Card to Mr. E. Edwards Jun, 7 St. 
Mary's Place, Cutter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Via 
Holland, from Cpl. Hardy. 

Mon Adresse exacte: 
Nom et prenom: Cpl. E. Hardy 
No. matricule: 1906 
No. de la compagnie: 8, Baraque "E'* 
No. du detachement: 

Giessen (Allemagne) 

Dear Ted : I am very glad everything went on 
Ai. I am sorry I was not with you. I am not 
wanting anything, thanks. I hope you have a good 
time when you go to Canada. I have not seen 
anything of Hookie for about 12 months, nor 
Stamper. I have still got a few things safe for 
you when I come home. I will close with best 
respects, Ted. 

222 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

Undated Card to Mrs. Edwards, Rotterdam, Hoi' 

land. 

Dear Em. Hope you are getting my letters all 
right and that all is well at home. I am still 
feeling and getting treated pretty good and will be 
in England in two or three days. Since it all 
goes well write me c/o of Bulter address and I 
will be sure to get them. How are the boys? Is 
the wee chap still holding my place? Tell Gor- 
don when I get to England I will help him get a 
bicycle so that he can be the same as Hector. This 
is where I am just now but will be on my way in 
a few hours. I have sent you Tinnie's photo. 
How will she do? It might be all we can get. 
Ed 

Postal to Mrs. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rose- 
dale, Toronto, Canada. 

26-10-16. From Folkestone. 

Dear Em: Arrived back in Folkestone all 
right. Called on Mrs. Cawthra. Had a long talk 
with her. Can*t get any word of when I am to 
get over to Canada but will let you know as soon 
as possible. Might be some time yet. Got the 
letter with Hector's and will bring the things with 
me when I come home. How are the boys get- 
ting along? Wish I was there. Good-bye, Eki. 
223 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

Extract from Toronto Daily Star^ December, 19 16. 

HOME ON LEAVE AFTER ESCAPE FROM THE 

HUNS 

Sgt. Edward Edwards Tells Graphic Story op lOO 

Mile Flight. 

Wife Had to Prove Husband Was Alive. 

Sent His Photo and Letters Before War Ofpicb 

Would Believe It. 

No bands played and no Reception Committee 
extended the welcome hand to Sergt. Edward Ed- 
wards when he stepped off the train at the Union 
Station and walked to the home of his wife and 
family one day last week, after two years and 
seven months' absence at the front with a store- 
house of thrilling experiences that rival even the 
exploits of the Three Musketeers. That he was 
one of only 49 left of the crack Princess Patricias 
who were mown down at the Ypres Salient on 
May 8, 1915, was wounded twice, missing and 
officially declared dead and escaped twice from 
German prison camps in company with two com- 
panions are only incidents in a long chapter of 
events which surpass in thrilling interest Dumas* 
most daring fiction. Tom Bnimley, another 
member of a Toronto regiment, and Mervin Sim- 
mons, a Canadian from Trail, B.C., were the two 
friends of the modern D'Artagan, but imfortii- 
224 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

nately Brumley was recaptured by the Huns 
during the first escape and Sergt. Edwards has not 
heard from him since. 

Sergt. Edwards is now on ten weeks' furlough 
and is due to report in England on May lo, when 
he expects to go into the fighting again. "We went 
to the Ypres salient in May. I was one of ten in 
my company to get through," said he. 

Tribute to Col. Buller 

Here Sergt. Edwards paid a tribute to his late 
commanding officer. Col. Buller, who was killed 
on the 2nd of June of this year. "It was the 
Germans, too, who told us of our old Colonel's 
death. They knew everything, it seemed, about 
our commanders and could tell the regiment and 
division that we belonged to." 

We were taken to Roulers, Belgium. After a 
brief stay there we were taken to Giessen. There 
were 1,200 prisoners, mostly Russian and French. 
The food we got was awful. 

Refused to Work 

"After a stay here of about six months I was 

sent with my two friends, Brumley and Simmons, 

to a punishment camp for refusing to work in a 

steel factory to make munitions. Three hundred 

225 



THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT 

British and Canadians also refused in spite of 
threats, and ill-treatment, and all were sent on to 
Celle Laager, the main punishment camp. We 
were there two weeks and then we were split into 
small parties and I was slated with my two friends 
for a place called Oldenburg. Here they wanted 
us to go into a moor and drain the place to grow 
potatoes. It was from this place that we made 
our first serious attempt to escape. 

We made a dash for the shelter of the moor. 
In a few minutes we heard the baying of a vicious 
pack of dogs they had sent in pursuit, but we 
managed to elude them and struck out for the 
Dutch border more than loo miles distant. We 
came to the River Ems four miles from the bor- 
der of Holland. We could not find a boat or 
raft and were recaptured. 

Made Final Escapb 

After undergoing this sentence, Sergt. Edwards 
and Simmons were taken to another punishment 
camp at Salsengen and it was from here that they 
made their successful escape on August 2i. 

The British Consul at Rotterdam arranged the 
wanderers' passage to England, where they ar- 
rived on the i8th of September. When he re- 
ported in London, Sergt. Edwards had to prove 
226 



THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE 

he was alive, because the records of the War Of- 
fice had him marked up as dead. A lot of red 
tape had to be untangled before the gallant sol- 
dier could be officially brought back from the 
dead, but at that time he was still writing to his 
wife, so that, when she saw her husband's nan^ 
in the casualty list, she at once contradicted the 
officials by sending her husband's letters and his 
pictures. 

Postal card to No. 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. 
/. Depots South Camp, Seaford, Sussex, England, 
from Charles Scarf e^ who was also captured on May 
Sth, 

Manor Farm, Intcrlakcn, Switzerland, Jan. 3rd, 
1917. 

Dear Old Pal Teddy: 

Just a card hoping to find you well as it leaves 
me A-i. Hope you had a good Christmas. Had 
a fairly good one myself but hope we are in Can- 
ada next one. Have had enough of being a pris- 
oner of war. Remember me to all the boys and 
write soon. From your old pal, Charlie. 

Postal card to 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. 
Depot, South Camp, Sea ford, Sussex, England, from 
his comrade in the escape. 

227 



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